p a rks & trai ls cou n c il of mn

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Friends Group Highlight

By Linda Picone, Parks & Trails Council volunteer

Friends of Anderson Park

Working together to preserve and restore a natural area

Kingsbury said, because it would be a
real structure, something that people
could use. A picnic structure would
help identify the area as a park.

The log picnic shelter was put up by volunteers through Friends of Anderson Park.

nderson Park in Isanti County is

an almost perfect example of what
can be accomplished when a family, a
government body and a group of willing and active volunteers come together.
In 2007, the Anderson family began
talking to Isanti County about selling
their 174-acre farm to the county. Lee
Kingsbury and some of her neighbors
heard about the possible sale and knew
that if they wanted to have a voice in
what happened with the beautiful natural area, they needed to form a Friends
Group.

Irving and John Anderson

County Park

The rich variety of birds in this Isanti County park include

sandhill cranes.
6Summer 2015

Two community meetings later, the

group had lots of ideas, a few donations,
volunteers for a planning committee
and plenty of enthusiasmand literal
muscleto make things happen.
Our mission was to preserve the
natural beauty of the area, said
Kingsbury. The park sits in the southeast corner of the county, an area with
a great diversity of flora and fauna.
The park includes restored prairie,
woods, marshes and over a half mile
of frontage on two small lakes.

As has been typical for the group, the

picnic structure started and finished
with lots of people pitching in. A
member of the group knew a log
builder who offered to help construct
the shelter, if the logs were purchased
from him. Those two men, plus a group
of retirees who called themselves the
AARP Crew, built the shelter. The
Friends Group raised several $1,000,
then asked the township for a grant
of $5,000. Then I went to the Isanti
County Board and told them we needed $24,000 from themfor a $78,000
project, Kingsbury said.

...if they wanted a voice

in what happened with this
beautiful area, they needed
a Friends Group.

The Friends Group wanted to help in

the creation of a park, its members also
wanted that park to stay natural. Today,
just seven years after the land was sold
to Isanti County, the park has several
added amenities that maintain the idea
of a place to view wildlife, to walk in
tranquility and to see Minnesotas geological and topological history.

The picnic structure is made of huge

logs and looks like it belongs in a natural area. Prairie and rain gardens have
been planted around it. Between the
shelter and a nearby lake is a natural
childrens play area, with play structures
made from tree trunks, branches, culverts and sand. Kids can and do create
teepees, houses, make-believe campfires
and anything else their imaginations
come up with.

The Friends of Anderson Park decided

that the first thing it wanted to help
accomplish was to build a picnic shelter,

Three boardwalks, one of them 950

feet long, allow visitors to walk through
what otherwise might be marshy areas
Minnesota Trails

parks & trails council of mn

without damaging the terrainor

their footwear. The longest boardwalk
has Horse Leg Lake on one side and a
wetland on the other, with a big viewing platform in the middle. The Friends
Group helped raise the grant money to
create the boardwalks.
Anderson Park has become known
to birders for its rich variety of birds,
from sandhill cranes to common loons
to red-shouldered hawks. The Friends
have partnered with the Isanti County
Parks Department, the Minnesota
Audubon Society and Wild River
Audubon Chapter to build a chimney
swift tower, hoping to attract hundreds
of swifts, a declining species, and to
put up purple martin nest boxes in a
number of sites in the park.
In 2013, a master plan for the park
recommended that adjacent land be
acquired for the park as it became
available. Barry Wendorf, Isanti County
parks director, began contacting the
owners of those properties, letting them
know that if and when they were ready
to sell, the County was interested. The
owner of one property responded and
talks beganwhich prompted the
Friends Group to start fundraising.
Then I got a call from another land
owner who said it had always been
their dream to have their land saved
to be part of a park, said Kingsbury.
Then another piece of property, on the
other side of the lake, also came up for
sale. We were just trying to catch our
breath.

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The Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota (P&TC) is the fiscal sponsor for
Friends of Anderson Park, a role it fills
for a number of Friends Groups. The
Friends Group suggested that Wendorf
contact P&TC to help acquire the land
and hold it in trust so the county would
have time to raise money. P&TC is
currently negotiating with one landowner and will soon be doing appraisals and surveys on the other possible
acquisitions, while the Friends Group is
raising money to use as matching funds
for grants. The adjacent properties
would grow the park from 174 acres
to roughly 280 acres and add a mile of
lakeshore.
Between 2008 and 2013, the Friends
of Anderson Park estimates that it
provided more than 4,000 volunteer
hours with an estimated value of nearly
$100,000, and generated donations of
more than $23,000. Thats a mark of
the organizations success, and the commitment of its members, but Kingsbury
said that for the new acquisitions, it
will need more funding. People have
stepped forward and put a lot of money
on the table.

Three boardwalks in the park allow visitors to walk

through marshy areas without damaging the terrainor their footwear. .

Helping Friends Groups

Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota works to
increase the capacity of volunteer-run Friends
Groups for state and regional parks and trails. By helping
these groups get established, connecting them with valuable resources, and helping to acquire land on their behalf,
we help grow a tremendous volunteer network to care for
these special places. Learn more about this work at

www.ParksandTrails.org
Minnesota Trails

Summer 20157