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The Eastside Community Park, located adjacent to Laurel Elementary School in Fort Collins, needs revitalization to transform the area into a safe and meaningful community space. There have been school lock-downs, sexual assaults, and transient issues that have created concerns for the safety of students and residents and created a generally unappealing. environment. The City of Fort Collins is working with community businesses and organizations to design and re-construct the park. The project has the coaching and support of CityGive; a newly-launched initiative within the City of Fort Collins to support philanthropic community activities. A number of local and neighborhood businesses and organizations are interested in supporting this project. Presentations are being made to the four Rotary Clubs of Fort Collins to determine interest in becoming one of the sponsors of this project.
Project objectives include:
1. Transform an existing, dated park into a vibrant community space through open spaces and greenways.
2. Improve community space in a commitment to reduce negative park activity, and strengthen community safety.
3. Spark neighborhood connections and sense of community through neighborhood events.
4. Leverage the newly-launched City Give as a vehicle to serve the community and engage traditional and nontraditional donors across our community.
5 Improve, maintain and program an existing park in a commitment to promote a sense of neighborhood, and invite increased use and social belonging.
The overall project budget is $245,000. The Rotary funded portion of this project is $6,000. This $6,000 will fund a specific items within the project such as two benches at $2,250 each and up to three bicycle racks at $500 each for a total of $6,000. The project must also be sustainable. The Rotary donation is contingent on all Fort Collins Rotary Clubs participating and the City also committing it's portion of funding along with a city approved plan for sustainability. Each Rotary club may also support this project individually if desired.
Each of the four Fort Collins Rotary clubs is asked to fund the project at a level of $1,500 to include $500 in club funds and $1,000 is DDF designated through a governor's grant. This will be reflected in the project financing section. One exception for funding is that funds from the Rotary Club of Fort Collins, After Work will use DDF awarded to this club from the Literacy Challenge. The Fort Collins Rotary Clubs will also support this project with voluntary labor.
Addendum to Project Description (added after the project was signed)
"Examples of hands on voluntary participation by Rotarians and others include the following:
• Volunteer work by club members during the pre-construction and construction phases. An example is the scheduled October 19 Eastside Park cleanup. Rotary volunteers would participate with other community members in cleaning and beautifying fences and shrubbery, removing old, broken asphalt and removal of a T-ball backstop.
• Ongoing cleanup and park facility maintenance once the project is completed. For example, the four clubs could each conduct an annual park cleanup for a total of four per year to inspect the facilities and report maintenance issues to the City, who has responsibility for park maintenance. This would also help make the project sustainable.
• Each of the four Fort Collins Rotary Clubs may also wish to hold an annual event in the park such as a club picnic or committee meeting.
In order to ensure completion of this project, both the mayor and city manager of the City of Fort Collins have stated their intent to complete the project. There are many project sponsors, in addition to Rotary, who want to see this project move forward and as such, the sponsors and the City will work diligently to ensure the project is started and completed.
As a contingency, however, the Rotary portion of this project, which includes 3 bicycle racks and two benches, will proceed to completion even if the overall project does not come to fruition. Should this occur, Rotary clubs sponsoring the bicycle racks and benches will work with the City of Fort Collins to ensure these or similar items are installed in either the Eastside Community Park or another Fort Collins park. With this contingency, the four Rotary clubs commit to completing the project."
This addendum was approved by the presidents of the four Fort Collins Rotary Clubs at the Quad Club meeting on Tuesday, October 1, 2019 and via e-mail.
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