The new White Loop Trail in Depew Park, Peekskill, NY. Photo by SolCard Productions.

July is a special time of year in our cities’ parks, so it is especially fitting that it is National Parks & Recreation Month. Whether you’re cooling off in a water spray or playing World Cup inspired pickup soccer game, I hope you are taking time this month to get outside and enjoy all that parks have to offer.  

Programming in our completed parks is ramping up now that schools are out for the summer. In Paterson’s Barbour and Vera Ames Community Parks, our Stewardship Mini Grant Recipients are hosting basketball clinics, yoga classes, wellness sessions and even Italian ice socials to help park users cool off. These newly renovated parks are full of the sounds of children playing, sizzling BBQs, and communities gathering.  

Meanwhile, construction progresses at the five new parks we have underway. NCP is out in the field, gathering input to inform our next projects; hosting community meetings, and canvassing poolside! To bring the next set of local visions to life, we are securing funding to build them.  

Below are a few milestones from the last couple months and a spotlight on our new team members supporting our efforts to bring parks to even more communities that need them.  

Rose 

NCP's newest project Delano-Hitch Park in Newburgh, NY

Current conditions at Delano-Hitch Park in Newburgh, NY.

Left: Member of NYNJTC Trail Crew paints blazes for new trail. Photo courtesy of NYNJTC.

Right: Barred Owl spotted on new White Loop Trail in Depew Park. Photo by SolCard Productions.

Another new trail is nearly complete in Peekskill’s Depew Park and connects the park with the Blue Mountain Reservation’s 1,538-acres of wilderness. NCP’s partner, New York New Jersey Trail Conference, has been working to clear the trail and mark it with fresh blazes. Expanding on the success of last year's popular Red Loop Trail, the 2-mile White Loop Trail marks an important milestone in NCP’s renovation of the 176-acre park as it offers a rare chance to connect city dwellers directly to nature.

Community meeting in Newburgh, NY to gather community input for upcoming public grant application.

Summer is not all fun in the sun; it is also a season for many public grant applications that, if successful, yield the capital dollars needed for park construction. This year we have helped our cities apply for more public funding than ever before. Working closely with five city partners, we have already submitted eight grant requests totaling $8.3M. Each submission required an average of 100 pages of plans, budgets, GIS demographic maps, and narrative to bring community stories alive.  

This hardworking team isn’t done yet! Another $2M in requests will go out by the end of this month. We are capitalizing on this now or never moment in state and federal funding to ensure our parks get built for the communities that so deserve them.  

Wilfred Nieves  

Director of Capital Projects 

Wilfred is a capital projects leader with over a decade of experience across clean energy and conservation. With a passion for creating access to nature, he joins NCP in a new role to bolster our capacity for complex construction management so we can help get parks to people faster!

Sean Moriarty 

Interim General Counsel 

The former Deputy Commissioner of the NJ Department of Environmental Protection, Sean brings a passion for equitable access to the outdoors and a wealth of experience in environmental law, policy, government systems, park development, and land management. 

Cassie Yu 

Summer Development Intern 

A rising junior at University of Wisconsin-Madison, Cassie is double majoring in Design, Innovation, and Society & Information Science. She joins us this summer to support our public grant applications and bolster our prospect research and fundraising systems.  

Josephine Deiesu 

Summer Communications Intern  

Majoring in Media, Culture, and Communication, Josephine is about to start her junior year at NYU. This summer, Josephine is creating content for NCP’s social media platforms and helping us gather community stories.