The three Rotary Clubs in Missoula have partnered with the Parks Department, the Montana Natural History Center and the Jannette Rankin Peace Center to take over management of the current Water Wise Garden, a park located near a key access point to the riverside trail in downtown Missoula. We are working on a plan to expand and upgrade the existing park in honor of our local Rotary centennial celebration. The park, located in Missoula and Missoula County next to the Missoulian building at 500 South Higgins Ave, is a popular destination for people interested in learning about native plants and drought-tolerant landscapes and is a busy thoroughfare for people accessing the popular Riverfront Trail system. The expansion will develop the teaching capabilities of the park for university, community and children's programs focused on the environment, conservation and water use. The monument also commemorates the Four-Way Test of Rotary, providing a community reminder to our work to promote peace, understanding and professional ethics.
The monument will be an analemma, or solar calendar, allowing visitors the ability to determine the day or the year by a shadow cast upon a solar calendar etched into the surface. The Natural History Center and others will use this as part of their teaching program to show how solar cycles affect the climate and our ecology.
This grant request is to help fund monument materials, which includes the basalt column from a quarry in northern Idaho that will be the main structure of the column. While the park will not be completed until 2019, the scientific nature of the installation requires that the monument be built when placed. It also will allow for testing and rework of the analemma prior to final installation if needed.
We are fortunate to have leading this project a person who has constructed a similar monument in another state. Under his direction we have already completed the solar site survey and astrological engineering of the calendar that verifies that the site will work. The Parks Department has also given approval to proceed. Currently we are building prototypes of the monument to determine the final size and construction materials. This will be complete in the coming months, and we'll begin ordering materials this summer for fall delivery and construction. Club members are raising funds and in-kind donations, leading the engineering and architectural design of the monument and park, and will provide hands-on work to prepare the site for installation.
The estimated budget for the project is $32,000. We a have already raised $2,500 to act as matching for this grant which is on deposit at the Missoula Rotary Foundation. The cost of building materials for the monument, once delivered to Missoula, is estimated at $12,000, although a switch in materials or size may reduce this cost to the $8,000 - 10,000 range. While we are early in our fundraising plan (the opportunity to do this just presented itself two months ago), we are confident of raising the money given the significant interest of fellow Rotarians and community partners and our past record of meeting our fundraising goals for previous projects. Already, all of the above engineering work has been donated by the engineers involved.
While this project hits multiple areas of focus, we feel that the commemoration of the Four Way Test and our club's active promotion of it in the Missoula Community, best fits the category Peace and Conflict Prevention. This could also very well fit under Water & Sanitation given the overall theme of the park and the teaching aspects the analemma will provide.
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