Mass Parks For All
By Doug Pizzi
More than 100 people attended our May 11 announcement on the creation of MCV’s new 501(C)(3) charitable corporation, Mass Parks For All (MPA).
Joining us at the event were DCR Commissioner Brian Arrigo; and Sen. Jamie Eldridge and state Rep. Ruth Balser, whom we honored for their leadership in their respective chambers to pass the Public Lands Preservation Act (PLPA). Also in attendance were former environmental secretaries Bob Durand and John DeVillers, DCR Stewardship Council Chair Jack Buckley and former Chair Whitney Hatch, Newton Mayor Ruthanne Fuller, as well as David Solomon and Herb Nolan of the Lawrence & Lillian Solomon Foundation, who announced a $50,000 challenge grant to start MPA off on the right track. More about that later.
MPA board Chair Karen Charles and Vice Chair Michele Hanss, introduced the new entity by talking about MPA’s mission to renew, expand, and connect our state parks and other public lands.
Hanss, who hosted the event, welcomed the guests, congratulating them for their long-term ongoing support for our public open spaces before talking about how MPA’s mission compliments those efforts.
“All of you are here tonight because you really worked hard…to preserve, protect, and improve our public lands and our quality of life,” she said. “There has never been a statewide advocacy group devoted to our shared public open space. Mass Parks For All fills that gap. MPA is not here to reinvent what you all have worked toward for years. We are here to synthesize and broadcast a statewide view with a 21st Century vision for our public lands.”
Charles continued that theme.
“We want to renew our parks. We want to describe how beautiful they are, how much they mean to all of us,” she said. “We want to expand and connect our parks from the eastern parkways to the western hills. We want to make sure you can get there…not only by automobile but by public transportation, by bicycle, and by walking. We can only do that with your support.”
Commissioner Arrigo, in his keynote address said that what drew him to leave his post of seven years as mayor of Revere was the chance to continue community building he did as a mayor on a statewide basis.
“And so, I look forward to the work that’s ahead,” he said. “I look forward to partnering with all of you to make the department the most important and powerful department in the Commonwealth, number one. And number two, to make sure we have the best park system in the country.”
Moving forward, I’m excited to announce that on July 1, I will move from my position at MCV to become the first executive director of Mass Parks For All. It is truly an honor that I have worked toward for the last four years. While it is especially pleasing to see it come to fruition, what it really means is that our work has just begun.
If you support our work and want to see us continue the progress we have made, please donate today. Any amount is helpful, and if you can become a monthly donor, so much the better. In the four years since we have been focusing on our state parks and other public lands, we have gone from a fledgling NGO to the go-to statewide source on park issues.
In recognition, Herb Nolan of the Solomon Foundation announced a $50,000 challenge grant to MPA.
“It’s reaching out and working with friends groups across the state, and that really spoke to us,” Nolan said. “The importance of knitting these relationships together, between departments, between non-profits, between passionate individuals, helping our public servants step up to do the job they’re stepping up to do. That’s so important. That’s what this is about and I’m so happy to support this.”
The challenge grant comes in two parts, $25,000 in each segment. MPA must raise $25,000 before June 30 to be awarded the first half. Fortunately, we are only about $5,000 away from that goal.
From the state park summit we held in October 2022, which yielded an open letter to state government officials and other park stakeholders signed by more than 50 groups, to our ability to help win reasonable budget increases for DCR, MCV and now MPA is increasingly seen as a unifying force for park advocates from across the state. So please support our work today with your tax-deductible contribution to help MPA move forward on our admittedly ambitious agenda.
Our parks need champions like you. Remember, the park you save may be your own.
Doug Pizzi is Executive Director for the Massachusetts Conservation Voters (and soon Mass Parks For All!)