Dog Park Open

 The PetSafe Carbondale Community Dog Park is open for your dog's (and your use). More landscaping needs installation and the drinking fountain construction has been pushed back due to COVID but the grounds are open. Grand opening will take place in April.

Carbondale Dog Park Receives Grant

 Friends of the Carbondale Dog Park annonunced today Carbondale will recieve a $25,000 grant from PetSafe to finish construction of the dog park on West Sunset. The press release is below

Friends of Carbondale Dog Parks is thrilled to announce that Carbondale has been selected as a winner of the PetSafe Bark for Your Park $25,000 new dog park grant.

Our small town came in third place (out of 5), a testament to the way Southern Illinoisans pull together for worthy causes. FCDP is deeply grateful to everyone who voted for the dog park. It's your park too!

This grant will allow FCDP to complete the 2 1/2 acre dog park that is under construction at Parrish Park, 2500 W. Sunset Drive, Carbondale. The completed dog park will have an ADA friendly walkway from the parking lot to the shelter, small and large dog fields with a water fountain and spray fountain in each field, three "sally port" entry gates as well as maintenance gates, a boulder field and other play features, an event area outside the east gate, and landscaping to screen the dog park from the Parrish School playground and adjacent soccer fields. 

Through the generous support of the community, the Parrish Park dog park is being built without use of any tax money. John A. Logan Construction program is building the walkway and shelter; the Plumbers Union Apprenticeship Program will install the fountains; Asaturian Eaton has provided surveying and site engineering; Arthur Agency provided design work; Thad Heckman, Architect, created the concept drawings; E.T. Simonds and Mark Mathis Excavating prepared the site; the Egyptian Board of Realtors donated the water fountains; the City of Carbondale laid the water lines; Pure Pet, Indian Creek Kennel, and Banterra Bank donated benches; the Carbondale and Murphysboro Walmarts made grants for the project; and many individual donors, including Glenn and Jo Poshard and other anonymous large donors, made this project possible.

Eurma C. Hayes Center Vote

 today is the last day to vote for the Eurma C. Hayes Center to get a $25000 grant from State Farm. 

The award of $25,000 would support some of the Center’s infrastructural needs, including automatic doors and new windows. These improvements are necessary to enhance American Disability Act (ADA) accessibility and energy efficiency. The anticipated timeframe for opening the Center is in September of 2021. This grant would assist in restoring a historic commercial property for the betterment of the African American community within Carbondale. Like State Farm, we recognize that being a good neighbor is about giving back to one’s community. The ECHC’s board members and community stakeholders have already begun investing in the Center; however, without outside funding sources such as the State Farm Neighborhood Assist Program, the progression towards reopening may be prolonged. The community has a 30% poverty rate with fully subsidized government public housing projects adjacent to the Center. Therefore, the ECHC will provide some of the programs for free through income-producing tenants.

Also the 31st is the last day to vote for a similar grant for the Carbondale Dog Park.

Carbondale deserves a PetSafe® Bark for Your Park™ grant because the need is great, the community has shown its support, and the region lacks areas where people from diverse backgrounds and their dogs can socialize informally. The Carbondale area has a limited economic base, with few tax dollars for public amenities. The Carbondale Park District manages several parks but lacks the resources for this project. In 2017, community volunteers created Friends of Carbondale Dog Parks to build an off-leash facility using only private funds. Sustained outreach and media coverage have earned it widespread support from individuals and organizations. At 2.5 acres, Carbondale’s first public dog park will be the largest in the region. It aims to attract dog lovers from near and far with events and activities. This community effort deserves – and needs – to win the $25,000 grant to fulfill Carbondale’s vision of an off-leash dog park for all.

Dog Park Grant

 supporters of the Carbondale Dog Park are in the running for a $25000 grant to help build it. As is apocryphal about Illinois politics, vote early and often.  From the email I received

Carbondale is one of twenty finalists for a $25,000 PetSafe Grant to build Carbondale's first public dog park. Five winners with the most VOTE totals will each win $25,000 to build a dog park. Go to barkforyourpark.com to vote August 3 through August 31. Anyone across the US and world can vote once a day, every day during the voting time period. Or you can register and vote here: https://barkforyourpark.petsafe.com/locations/carbondale-il which takes you directly to the Carbondale page to vote for Carbondale.

Tell your friends, family, and neighbors to vote daily and help Carbondale be one of the WINNERS.

Dog Park

 After three years of planning, member of the Friends of Carbondale Dog Park and the Carbondale Park District broke ground on the Carbondale Dog Park. Plans currently are to open it to the public in June of 2021.

Dog Park Site

Not surprisingly, the Carbondale Park Board opted not to select the property on which their offices sit for the new Carbondale Dog Park. Instead it will be by the LIFE Community Center on W. Sunset Drive.  so the ground of Hickory Lodge will still sit nicely landscaped and generally unused. Would be nice to see events held on the property, such as community gatherings or concerts, since they don't seem to get much use otherwise. Maybe there are events there and I just never hear of them.

Dog Park

Friends of Carbondale Dog Parks sent out the following email for supporters to copy and paste and edit to send onto the Carbondale Park Board.

Dear Commissioners,

 I support the request by the Friends of Carbondale Dog Parks to establish a dog park at Hickory Lodge.

IN YOUR LETTER, STATE ONE OR A FEW REASONS YOU WANT THE DOG PARK SITED AT HICKORY LODGE. HERE ARE SOME OF THE REASONS IT WAS OUR FIRST CHOICE.

 Hickory Lodge is easy for me to get to [walking].

It’s easy for people throughout Carbondale to get to.

It’s centrally located.

All kinds of people live within walking distance.

It has a great parking lot.

It’s a very short walk from the parking lot to the site of the proposed dog park (especially important for people with limited mobility).

It’s a centrally located park that should be used as a park, not just the Park District headquarters.

It's a big, beautiful, empty, unused lot intended for community use, and building our dog park there will generate a lot of community use. 

It will help stabilize the neighborhood by making it more attractive to long-term residents – homeowners and long-term renters.

It was donated by the Martin family to be used as a public park facility, and it should be used for that purpose, not just the Park District headquarters.

The 2007 Hickory Lodge Task Force envisioned the Lodge and grounds as a multi-use community center. A dog park furthers this goal, contributing to making it a welcoming park for people in Carbondale and the larger region.

Dog Park

Putting a dog park in Carbondale on the Hickory Lodge/Carbondale Park District office grounds make quite a bit of sense, The offices are what gets use on the property, not the grounds, and the grounds are fairly spacious, giving plenty of room for dogs and their owners to run around. Turley and Attucks Parks get much more use by the human population of Carbondale, who might not care too much for having a lot of dogs running about. Meanwhile, the Hickory Lodge  is comparatively isolated and, as far as I can tell, gets very little use.