Colorado town receives $500,000 grant for local park improvements
After securing a Great Outdoors Colorado grant to help fund proposed improvements to Buchanan Park, Evergreen Parks and Recreation is seeing its vision come to fruition.
It isn’t just a town agency that is looking forward to the improvements, which are proposed to include a new skate park, playground and permanent stage for concerts and events. Locals like Ally Hilgefort, who lives across the street, are behind the project and making sure to engage the widespread popular support for it.
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CBS
“We’re always walking up here,” Hilgefort told CBS Colorado. “I have a three-year-old and a seven-year-old, and typically I’m bringing the wagon with me with stuff and them and snacks.”
As continued development of mountain towns in the Foothills remains a key topic of discussion in Jefferson County, Hilgefort sees the Buchanan Park project as a means to continue to engage the community and give kids a reason to want to stay in town, as well as be nostalgic about their home.
“To further Evergreen and make it as great as it is, we need the families and the kids that grew up here to stay here,” she added.
It’s a feeling shared by many locals. The Evergreen Skate Coalition, comprised of longtime residents with families and kids, was one of the earliest proponents of the project. Now, several groups are advocating for different proposed pieces of the park.
“All of these different groups are coming together to build a new space for Evergreen,” said Kathy Dekker, who helps run events for EPRD. She, like Executive Director Liz Cohen, is a resident of Evergreen and has a stake in the project. While discussions have taken place all over the country about the value of government use of public funds and the potential privatization of previously civil services, Dekker told CBS Colorado that the Buchanan Park project is an example of people coming together for a public good.
“We’re continuing to add value to [this] community,” she said. “There’s things that are being privatized in other locations. There’s so much value in having access.”
The project has received grants in the past, but none as large as the Great Outdoors Colorado (or GoCo) grant. It provided over $500,000 towards the proposal and even allowed Cohen to resubmit prior grant applications that had been denied.
“The Gates Family Foundation had initially rejected it, but now that GOCO’s on board, we refined it and now we’re under consideration for them,” she said.
As Hilgefort sees the improvements as a chance to not only keep kids in town but also make them want to stay. Even if they don’t, she said, they’ll have fond memories of a new and improved Buchanan Park, which will always give them something to come back to.
“We love the idea as they get older and are able to hop over and meet up with friends and kind of adventure with their friends because it is so close,” she concluded.
