Funds are flooding in as the 80-year old dream of Dallas to build the Five Mile Creek is finally coming to fruition according to a Dallas Morning News article which reports,
“This may be a watershed moment for southern Dallas. We’re referring to the $5.7 million in donations announced last week to help fund the Five Mile Creek Urban Greenbelt project — a significant commitment.
This project conceived in 2019 is now closer to reality. It includes 23 miles of new trails, protects 124 acres of public land and creates three new parks. This is long-lasting infrastructure for southern Dallas, but it is also a big investment for the future of the city as a whole.
Five Mile Creek will connect over 186,000 people to the outdoors as part of Trust for Public Land’s goal to ensure that every person in Dallas has a park or green space within a 10-minute walk of their home. This is a worthy goal, especially for a part of the city that has been historically underserved.”
Back then, the lack of funds and the high cost of the project were huge factors that shunned away city officials but luckily, donations started coming in to bolster both the project and city officials according to a Dallas Innovates article. They say,
“The Boone Family Foundation dedicated $2.65 million, and Lyda Hill Philanthropies committed $2.5 million, TPL said in a statement. Added to previous grants received from the Sapphire Foundation, Victoria and William Chaney, and others, the new philanthropic support total for the project has risen to more than $5.7 million.
“Parks have the power to improve health, benefit the environment, build equity, and bring the community together, but only about half of the nearly 200,000 residents living in the Five Mile Creek watershed have access to park or trail within a 10-minute walk of home,” Robert Kent, Texas State Director for Trust for Public Land, said in a statement. “The entire greenbelt network will benefit not only the residents of southwest Dallas and Oak Cliff but make the natural beauty of the area accessible to all of Dallas’s 1.3 million residents. We’re thrilled to have the support of the Boone Family Foundation and Lyda Hill Philanthropies to help further our efforts.”
Accordingly, the Five Mile Creek will be built not only to enable the bridging of different parts of Dallas and connecting people but also to provide a healthful ecology to the future generations.