Love Your Park Week – FOW could win $100,000 grant in competition

Posted 5/10/17

by Jan Alex Springside Chestnut Hill Academy students on an school outing in the Wissahickon Just about everyone who lives in this corner of Philadelphia has some sort of relationship with the …

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Love Your Park Week – FOW could win $100,000 grant in competition

Posted

by Jan Alex

Springside Chestnut Hill Academy students on an school outing in the Wissahickon

Just about everyone who lives in this corner of Philadelphia has some sort of relationship with the Wissahickon Valley. Maybe you take your dogs for a daily walk on its scenic trails, or maybe you’re a runner and Forbidden drive serves as your training ground.

Maybe you’re a lifelong fisherman and the banks of the Wissahickon will always be engraved in your memory as the place you caught your first fish, or maybe you’re an artist in need of natural inspiration.

Regardless of how you make use of the valley, as a resident of Chestnut Hill, you know just how vital the Wissahickon is to life in this part of the city.

A park like the Wissahickon requires a daunting amount of annual maintenance and without groups like Friends of the Wissahickon (FOW) and other community service initiatives, this delicate ecosystem would likely succumb to the many strains placed on it by its close proximity to an urban environment.

It goes without saying, but in modern times supporting our green spaces and the organizations that care for them is of the utmost importance, the Wissahickon and FOW being no exception.

With that said, next week (May 13-20) is one of the most important times of the year to support FOW and the valley that we all hold so close to our hearts.

Next week, May 13-21, the city of Philadelphia will be celebrating its fifth annual “Love Your Park Week” festival in honor of the Philadelphia Park System and the organizations that maintain it. FOW is celebrating this week-long event with daily organized trail maintenance and several special events to promote appreciation of the Wissahickon.

Getting your hands dirty, however, isn’t the only way to show your support for FOW in the upcoming week. FOW is currently one of three finalists in a citywide competition to win a prize of a $100,000 unrestricted grant from the NRG Gives Campaign.

The competition is organized by NRG, a leading consumer energy solutions provider that is seeking to increase community outreach across Pennsylvania and empower the public to support community nonprofits.

Winning the competition would be a major asset for the organization, which receives no funding from the Parks Department and operates entirely on volunteer service and charitable donations. In a conversation with the Chestnut Hill Local, FOW executive director Laura McCarthy said, “The $100,000 that would come in would support the work that we do on both habitat management and infrastructure. That includes our trail work, that includes invasive species removal, managing and promoting native species of plants and that sort of web of life that feeds off of them.”

Clearly, winning the grant could mean a world of difference for the FOW’s ongoing preservation efforts, and to win, all they need is your votes.

Voting opened on May 8 and will continue to be open through May 19. Supporters can vote as many times as they want, as long as they aren’t a robot, and can find the poll online at fow.org/vote.

The coincidence of the voting period coinciding with Love Your Park Week, is one that is all too timely. In a time where environmental organizations and agencies on all levels are facing decreased funding, it’s more important than ever for communities to support their local parks and the organizations that care for them. Luckily for all of us, this upcoming week will have more than enough opportunities to do just that.

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