Park District Receives Community Foundation Community Needs Grant to help fund trail connection at Middle School

The Sycamore Park District is honored to be among the recipients of the DeKalb County Community Foundation’s Community Needs Grant for the fall 2016 grant period. The $20,000 grant will help support engineering and construction of a trail to connect Route 23 near the Sycamore Middle School to the Brickville Road parking area that accesses trails to Leon Larson and Sycamore Lake Parks. This is the first of two trail connections in the District’s long-range plan, ACTION 2020. Eighty percent of the project’s total cost will be funded by an IDOT transportation grant that the District received earlier this fall. The $20,000 from the Community Foundation will assist the Park District with the $158,150 local match.

Now with the support of the DeKalb County Community Foundation, this project has truly become a community effort. Though an easement, the Sycamore School District donated the land, the Park District will oversee development of the trail, the City will take responsibility for the safe crossing at Brickville Road and ENCAP, Inc. will establish native landscapes along the trail for middle school teachers to use as an outdoor learning space. Michelle Schultz, Vice President of the Sycamore Park District Board of Commissioners says, “We anticipate this trail will make a big impact on recreation, education and alternate transportation in Sycamore – and even more when Phase II is completed. The District is proud to have the support of the DeKalb County Community Foundation for collaborative efforts such as this.”

This 1-mile asphalt trail segment will add a safe walking/biking corridor to the middle school as well as an integral piece of a larger county-wide plan to connect the Great Western Trail trailhead to Peace Road. Specifically, the project includes replacing and widening the existing ½ mile stretch of sidewalk along Route 23 from the bridge at the Kishwaukee River northward to Maplewood Drive and installing a new ½ mile trail from Route 23 westward to Brickville Road.

This grant brings the District’s fundraising campaign, Leaf a Legacy, to nearly $750,000 of its $1 million goal. Like all Leaf a Legacy donations and pledges made by December 31, 2016, 50% of this contribution will be matched by an anonymous donor. In addition to two trail connections, ACTION 2020 projects include a community center, dog park, splashpad, sled hill, sports complex expansion and a new irrigation system for the Sycamore Park District Golf Club. For more information about ACTION 2020 and Leaf a Legacy, visit sycamoreparkdistrict.com.