Note from the Executive Director

At the Anchorage Park Foundation's new offices on L Street, project planning is already underway for the summer of 2010. These are challenging times for our parks and the community at large, but the Anchorage Park Foundation will continue to be a strong partner to park supporters like you who are passionate about maintaining and improving Anchorage parks.

In the past five years, the Anchorage Park Foundation has funded, organized and completed more than $12 million of work across 300 projects to improve more than 100 parks in Anchorage. We will continue to mobilize public support and financial resources for Anchorage parks, trails, and recreation opportunities.

Our relationship with the Municipality of Anchorage has changed, but we still share the same mission: promoting healthy parks and healthy people in Anchorage. We rely on community partners like you to bring volunteer energy, fundraising power and community support to our park projects. Our partnership, which depends on both you and the Municipality, must remain strong to continue our collective 5-year track record of success.

Meanwhile, we’ve recently moved into new offices at The Nature Conservancy's building at 715 L Street. Kelly Meeker joins me as our Program & Communication Director.

We look forward to continuing to work with parks supporters like you to build a stronger community and take better care of what we have. We’d love to hear directly from you. Thank you for loving Anchorage parks!

Beth Nordlund

Neighborhood Park Fix-Its

In partnership with the Parks & Recreation Department, the APF accomplished “Fix-Its” at 14 neighborhood parks this summer. We used last year’s Anchorage Parks Report Card to identify needed repairs in Anchorage neighborhood parks likereplacing dilapidated benches, trash cans, park signs and playground equipment; removing graffiti; restoring landscaped areas; improving park safety; and creation of outdoor classrooms in some parks.

More than 1,000 volunteers contributed 6,500 hours of volunteer labor at community “Fix-It” events. Each event included barbecues, entertainment and activities like art and face painting for children. By our next newsletter, we'll have a summary report showing off all the community successes.

APF considers our work with you in neighborhoods core to our mission, and we are working with the Parks & Recreation Department to select parks for improvement next summer. Call now to suggest projects in your neighborhood!

Youth Employment in Parks

This summer the Youth Employment in Parks (YEP) program hired more than 80 Anchorage youth to offer high quality recreation programs in eight park and school locations and complete improvements in Anchorage parks.

You may have seen the YEP crews all over town-- at University Lake building a new trail linking the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium to park trails, or at Goose Lake, building sand castles with neighborhood kids. YEP teens work hard, have fun and learn valuable job skills to prepare them for careers in recreation or natural resource management. We're proud to work with the Parks & Recreation Department and Alaska Youth for Environmental Action to offer job training, civic engagement and leadership development for Anchorage youth.

If you know any of our funders please join us in thanking them!

Projects Actively Fundraising for 2010 and 2011

This summer featured a long list of success stories projects in Anchorage parks. From the new overlook in Baxter Bog Park to the almost complete boardwalk in Tanglewood park, volunteers are inspiring neighborhoods to team up and rehabilitate their neighborhood parks. Check out the 2008 Challenge Grant Progress Report to learn more.

Here are some of the projects actively fundraising for construction in 2010 and 2011:

• Parks for All: Building a handicapped-accessible playground in Cuddy Family Midtown Park
• Baxter Bog: This Challenge Grant group is raising funds to complete the outdoor classroom
• Westchester Lagoon: The South Addition Community Council and park neighbors are raising funds to build a playground near Covey Cafe

To support these projects or any other APF park improvements, please visit our contributions page.

Volunteer of the month