Private donors step in to keep parks going

May 31, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

DELAWARE, Ohio

Private donors and volunteers are stepping up to help maintain state parks in Ohio, where budget cuts have left the parks system with more than $550 million in unmet repairs.

Throughout Ohio, 54 nonprofit groups are raising money and recruiting volunteers to help make the parks better, said Jim Henehan, a spokesman for the system. They raised a total of $600,000 last year.

At the Alum Creek State Park in Delaware, private funds maintain a sailboat marina, which has a new $87,000 shelter house available to the public to rent. Volunteers maintain mountain bike, horse and hiking trails. Eagle Scouts have planted flowers, and a new disc golf course comes courtesy of players’ groups that are raising money for targets, concrete tee pads and signs.

“Our partnerships, friends groups and volunteers have dramatically helped us weather the economic storm right now,” said John Hunter, acting chief of Ohio state parks.

Ken Rollins of Mid-Ohio Organized Disc Golf said his group raised the $6,000 for targets at Alum Creek after successfully leading the opening of a similar course at Delaware Lake State Park. Other groups are donating $100 each to pay for the tee pads — concrete squares where players launch their discs to start each hole — and paying for signs.

“The labor that has been involved in it has been donated labor,” Rollins said. “People go out on weekends and pour concrete and do all the finishing work.”

Ohio’s 74 state parks have taken cut after cut over the past decade. Since 2000, the parks system has lost about $17.5 million in annual state support, meaning cuts in the crews that mow, clean bathrooms and pick up trash.

In 2004, dog lovers proposed a fenced area at Alum Creek where dogs could run and swim along a grassy shore shaded by apple trees. Today, the dog park is one of the most-used areas of the overall park. Volunteers built the fences, plant new grass and hold monthly clean-ups.

Victor Ricks, who manages Alum Creek State Park, said he was initially skeptical about how much volunteers could do. But after seeing the success of the disc golf course and the dog park, Ricks said he’s ready to listen to anyone who can come up with the resources.