In addition to celebrating its 35th anniversary, the park-advocating nonprofit Park Pride is also celebrating the largest investment in local parks in its history. This week, Park Pride announced $3.9 million in funding across 37 parks in the City of Atlanta and DeKalb County.
Michael Halicki, executive director of Park Pride, said he’s excited about the large investment into parks around the city.
“This year’s grant cycle, we’re providing more funds to more neighborhood community park projects than ever before,” Halicki said.
The investments will go towards anything from park infrastructure like pavilions, playground equipment and benches to the less glamorous but still necessary things like trash cans and dog hygiene stations. The expected timescale for these improvements is 12 to 18 months.
Halicki said the importance of parks for communities was really highlighted during the pandemic when they were one of the few spaces to safely visit.
“Since the pandemic, when people were sheltering in their homes, Park Pride found that our efforts to support parks where people live was really resonating with the public, philanthropy,” Halicki said. “We found there was a receptivity from the government to partner with us to a greater extent.”
Local government comments suggests the relationship is continuing strong.
“We strive to build a world-class parks system in Atlanta, one that is safe, accessible
and enriching for residents and visitors,” City of Atlanta Department of Parks and
Recreation Commissioner Justin Cutler said in a press release. “Park Pride is helping make that happen by working with communities to realize their park plans and dreams. We are honored to continue building our strong partnership with Park Pride.”
The increased attention on public parks was the catalyst for the Parks for All Campaign, which is where much of the increased funding comes from along with local-government allocated funds. Park Pride has been steadily able to grant more funding, with $1.3 million in 2021 to $3.9 this year.
The campaign’s name wasn’t just a fun title, either. “Parks for All” underlines the intention of where these funds are going to be distributed, according to Halicki. Around 50 percent of funds are going to park projects in historically disinvested communities.
“We believe everyone, regardless of where you live, deserves access to quality green space,” Halicki said. “In recent years, we have been much more intentional in making sure that our efforts are balanced within the areas we serve, and making sure that we are meeting the community where they’re at.”
Further underlining the goal of investing in historically disinvested communities is the fact that there is no matching requirement for the grants in these designated communities, unlike funding going towards other more affluent areas. According to an analysis from the Trust for Public Land of the 100 most populous U.S. cities, neighborhoods of color have access to 44 percent less park acreage than white neighborhoods — and this pattern is true of low-income versus high-income neighborhoods, too.
The pandemic, again, highlighted these equity gaps. With people of color often suffering at higher rates from COVID-19, the less available green space made a difference in how communities could deal with it.
In all, Halicki says these funding grants are just a tool to help empower communities.
“We’re here to work with communities to help their vision become their reality,” Halicki said.
Park Pride recognizes around 200 greenspaces around Atlanta and DeKalb. One of the biggest ways the organization advocates for local parks is by helping communities create “Friends of the Park” (FoP) groups. Currently, the nonprofit works with about 100 of these FoP groups. Additionally, there’s plenty of room for overlap between the extensive urban garden network in Atlanta, with one of the funding projects going towards Urban Food Forest at Browns Mill — the largest of its kind in the U.S.
