News – Page 11 – Parks & Trails Council of Minnesota

February 3, 2021

2019-2020 Youth Engagement Grant Projects In Review

In 2019, Parks & Trails Council launched a grant program designed as a partnership with friends groups to engage youth in parks and trails. In this first year of the program we began working with eight friends groups who identified innovative ways to engage youth ...

February 1, 2021

2021 Legislative Session underway

State park fee increases proposed in governor's budget Lawmakers convened the 2021 legislative session in early January in what will be one of the more unusual yet consequential sessions in recent memory. Legislators have a short but complex list of tasks: battling the ongoing COVID-19 ...

January 22, 2021

History of Lake Shetek State Park

1862 Tensions escalate between the Dakota and white settlers leading to a group of Dakota attacking the Lake Shetek settlement in the early days of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. 1863 The bodies of the 15 white settlers who were killed in the attack are ...

Wooden sign mounted between stone pillars

January 22, 2021

Saving a rare forested peninsula for Lake Shetek State Park

Parks & Trails Council secured a treasured landscape for Lake Shetek State Park during a live auction on Oct. 24, 2020. The sale is expected to be finalized by May. The 24.5-acre property, with 3,000 feet of lakeshore along Lake Shetek, was put up for ...

January 21, 2021

Meet the Friends of Chester Woods Park

This is a park that wholeheartedly welcomes volunteers. “There’s a whole culture of embracing volunteers within all Olmstead County Parks,” says Joel Dunette, one of the founding members of the friends group. In fact, the number of hours that volunteers contribute toward the park is equal to the staff hours.

Eight people standing outdoors with buckets around waist to collect seeds

January 19, 2021

5 Ways Nature Time Makes Us Healthier

1 It helps us feel healthy and happy Spending at least two hours in nature (such as parks, woodlands and beaches) per week, has been associated with significantly more likelihood of reporting good health or high well-being. And just 20 minutes spent in urban parks, …

Two women with three children all on bicycles

January 19, 2021

Movement growing for doctors’ to prescribe nature

The next time you’re at your doctors office you may end up leaving with a prescription not for pills, but for nature.

Doctor's prescription to spend time at a park and image of people at Frontenac State park

December 30, 2020

Creating water quality activity kit

Friends of Lake Bemidji State Park created a water quality educational kit that will be used at the park for youth programs and activities.

December 28, 2020

State Farm “Quotes for Good” Sponsors Friends of the Lake Vermilion Trail

From Friends of the Lake Vermilion Trail Friends of the Lake Vermilion Trail is excited to be selected as State Farm Agent Tim Johnson’s Quotes for Good program sponsored organization during January and February 2021. For every quote provided on a potential auto, fire, life, ...