By Elizabeth Wulfhorst
Last year over 7 million people visited the parks, golf courses and recreation areas in the Monmouth County Park System, hopefully finding “a place to make memories,” the theme of its 2019 report.
“Being outside together in nature is a great facilitator of special memories,” according to the report, and the theme “calls out a few of the many lasting ways that families, friends, nature-lovers and outdoor enthusiasts have taken advantage of the parks through the years,” said James J. Truncer, secretary-director of the Monmouth County Park System in an email. Over the years, residents have used the parks for exercise, to commune with nature, as a backdrop for prom and wedding photos and attended myriad programs offered by the park system.
In 2019 the park system acquired 263 acres of land, bringing its total to 17,547 acres, over half of which is forested. A little over a quarter is open fields, with the remaining rounded out by bodies of water, wetlands and developed areas like parking lots and structures.
Of the system’s 43 parks, Manasquan Reservoir, Holmdel Park and Thompson Park in Lincroft were the most visited. More than 220,000 rounds of golf were played in 2019 at the county’s six golf courses and nearly 105,000 residents participated in the more than 5,000 programs offered last year.
The park system completed three major building renovations, two new trails, a playground expansion and numerous environmental projects in 2019. Two projects were completed at Dorbrook Recreation Area in Colts Neck: the 1-mile wooded Egret Trail along the reservoir and the Lion’s Den, a sensory playground for those with visual impairments completed by the Colts Neck Lions Club, along with Friends of the Parks.
At Huber Woods Park in Middletown, a new pollinator garden will encourage butterflies and bees and at Thompson Park, large specimen elm and ash trees were treated to prevent disease.
The park system has also begun changing to energy-efficient LED lighting and converting water fountains to bottle-fill stations.
The park system relies heavily on volunteers and over the course of 2019, over 1,200 volunteers “contributed 25,989 hours to maintain and beautify the parks and staff park events,” according to the report.
The park system also released its 2019 budget report, which showed $47 million in revenue and $46 million in expenditures.
The article originally appeared in the August 6 – 12, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
