By Allison Perrine
MONMOUTH COUNTY – With three decades and over $1.2 million in project funding under its belt, the Friends of the Monmouth County Park System nonprofit has accomplished quite a bit to improve and preserve local parks and open spaces.
The Friends, a 501(c)(3) that raises funds exclusively for the betterment of the Monmouth County Park System, will turn 30 in 2022 and, to celebrate, executive director Maria Wojciechowski highlighted its many accomplishments over the years at a Dec. 6 county Board of Recreation commissioners meeting.
“We’re kind of like the Monmouth County Park System: we have something for everybody. If you like it, chances are we might have paid for part of it,” Wojciechowski said.
Some of the Friends’ initiatives have directly impacted the lives of several groups in Monmouth County. The Friends covers costs for “underserved” children in Asbury Park, Neptune, Long Branch and some areas along the Bayshore, for example, to attend after-school programs, camps and holiday parties that they otherwise might not be able to, Wojciechowski said. It also pays for groups based in those areas such as the Boys & Girls Club of Asbury Park or the Mercy Center to participate in park system programs and classes.
“It’s really a lovely thing,” she said.
The Monmouth County Park System encompasses some 18,000 acres and over 35 parks. The Friends have had a hand in amenities at most of them, including in the Two River area. At Thompson Park in Middletown the Friends have spent $146,000 on expenses including an exhibit at the visitor’s center, a historic designation, a ropes challenge course, memorial benches, off-leash dog area features and a memorial tree grove which “gave people an opportunity to donate a tree in someone’s memory,” she said.
“We paid for the trees, the bronze plaques and the planting and the design and layout of that,” said Wojciechowski.
Some of the nonprofit’s most visible impacts were made at Deep Cut Gardens, a 54-acre site famously home to a bounty of colorful flowers, bushes, trees and ponds. Over the years, the Friends have invested $130,000 to provide a koi pond, bonsai garden, memorial benches, rockery ponds, a horticultural library, a picnic area and the popular rose garden.
According to Wojciechowski, the rose garden was once at Thompson Park but was decimated by deer. So when officials installed a 12-foot fence around Deep Cut Gardens, the Friends decided that would be a better location for the tasty flowers. The group raised $10,000 for the garden which now features 52 varieties of roses, 180 rose bushes and the boxwoods that make up the foundational architecture for the outline of the garden.
“I am most proud of all the work at Deep Cut Gardens. That’s the most extensive and the most appreciated by the public,” she said.
As a county with a rich history, the Friends have worked on several initiatives to preserve historical elements in the area, including Battery Lewis. Located in Hartshorne Woods Park, this 600-foot-long casemated battery was installed during World War II to protect the New York Harbor. It was owned by the U.S. government but the Friends paid for the park system to acquire it, transport it, paint it and get a historical designation for it.
“It could fire a missle 29 miles off the coast of New Jersey. It could fire all the way down to Point Pleasant and all the way up to Staten Island,” said Wojciechowski.
Additionally, at Historic Longstreet Farm in Holmdel, the Friends have spent $110,000 to preserve some of the historic nature of the once working farm. That includes an exhibit about the site’s history, period costumes, heirloom fruit trees, jewelry, clothing and even some animals, including a ram.
“Not the kind that you knock down the door with but the woolly kind,” she joked. And to keep the ram company, the Friends acquired a pair of Percheron mules, a breed of mule that would have been around when the site was still a working farm.
The group’s work doesn’t end there. In addition to many of its other projects, the Friends plan to fundraise for a new gazebo at Deep Cut Gardens in 2022 to be placed near the parking lot. It will host its first cornhole tournament Saturday, June 4 at Dorbrook Recreation Area to begin raising money for the project.
“We’re really looking forward to it,” Wojciechowski said.
The Monmouth County Park System has three nonprofits that support it: the Friends, Monmouth Conservation Foundation and Special People United to Ride. Each supports the park system in its own way.
“When people say we’re lucky to have the parks, we are – but we didn’t get them by luck. It was a lot of cooperation (among) professionals, dedicated county government and inspired individuals,” she said. “It wouldn’t happen without the cooperation of everybody working together.”
The article originally appeared in the December 16 – 22, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.
