Photo courtesy MCPS
MONMOUTH COUNTY – The Friends of the Monmouth County Park System have a lot on their to-do list in 2020.
In a presentation at the Dec. 16 Monmouth County Board of Recreation Commissioners meeting, the Friends charitable organization laid out plans to tackle various projects to fund park system enhancements.
One they are particularly excited about is the Nature on the Move project.
Nature on the Move will be a $12,000 project to bring critters to various events in the county, said Maria Wojciechowski, executive director of the Friends group.
“It will be kind of like a bookmobile,” said Wojciechowski. “They will be able to take it out on the road to a school program or to a festival or a fair and open it up and have a mini environmental center there that the naturalists will be able to use.” It will likely take about a year to get everything set up and running.
The park system will purchase a van and the Friends will outfit it with flat-screen TVs, built-in cabinets and cooling systems to protect the reptiles and insects on hot days.
Also on the to-do list are essential upgrades to the historic Longstreet Farmhouse in Holmdel. According to Wojciechowski, the farmhouse needs ceiling repairs and new wallpaper. The wallpaper work was supposed to be done in 2019, but when they visited the site to replace it, they discovered that the plaster from the ceiling was starting to fall.
“That’s the number one for our special projects,” she said. The wallpaper and ceiling upgrades will cost an estimated $6,800 each. The group will also replace four antique cane chairs at Longstreet with hand-woven seats and also replace some of the heirloom fruit trees at the property.
Additionally, cherry trees will be replaced at Holmdel Park. Wojciechowski said she has been told that Monmouth County is home to the second-largest display of cherry blossoms in the state of New Jersey. One of their goals for 2020 is to replace three cherry trees donated by the Stevenson family in town, to maintain the site.
“The trees are starting to age out of there, so the park system is trying to start to rotate some stock so they don’t all go out at the same time,” she said.
In Colts Neck, the new Sensory Lions’ Den project was recently completed in Dorbrook Park’s Challenger Area, thanks to the Friends of the Monmouth County Park System and the Colts Neck Lions Club. It is designed for people of all abilities, but especially for the visually impaired. In 2020, the group will pay off an additional $2,100 for the playground for additional site work that was not included in the original plan, Wojciechowski said, like extra surfacing areas. “It really looks nice,” she said Dec. 16.
The Friends will be financing several other events, programs, scholarships and more throughout the year. Here are just a few of the 2020 expenses:
- Purchasing new fabrics to help repair and create new historic clothing, $500.
- Expand social media advertising for park system programs and events, $6,000.
- Employee training, registration and travel, $10,190.
- Coastal Activity Center special events, field trips and after-school scholarships for program fees and field trips, $4,550.
- Therapeutic recreation expenses including a semi-formal, weather presentation, camp scholarships and tickets and entry fees for inclusion coaches, $3,100.
- Volunteer Services cards, National Trails Day lunch, gardening tools and holiday reception costs, $2,550.
Looking back on 2019, Wojciechowski said it was a very good year for the organization, which offers several levels of memberships, starting at $25 for individuals, $50 for families and $250 for corporations. They were able to raise $281,751 through a membership drive, donations and fundraising efforts in 2019. “We really had a good year,” she said.
The Friends and the park system have various fundraising events throughout the year, but the Friends’ “biggest and newest” event was a wine and craft beer tasting Sept. 19 at Tatum Park. The group raised over $20,000 there, Wojciechowski said. “It really is a lot of fun and my board really works so hard on this. They really put so much effort into it. It really came together nicely,” she added.
This article originally appeared in the Jan. 9, 2020 print edition of The Two River Times.
