New foundation to help enhance ‘world-class city parks system’

A new Sioux Falls Parks Foundation aims to enhance city parks by inspiring and assisting those who want to contribute to them.

The past year has shown that a lot of families and businesses want to donate to the parks system.

There’s the new Jacobson Plaza, which will include a downtown ice ribbon and accessible playground.

A Leadership Sioux Falls class contributed to improvements at Hayward Park.

The Sertoma Club plans to raise funds to enhance Sertoma Park’s playground and potentially other city parks.

And the Kirby Dog Park kicked off recent philanthropic efforts with a donation by Joe and Jennifer Kirby to bring a long-awaited dog park to downtown.

“As Sioux Falls grows and becomes more urban, we believe parks will play an even greater role in creating connections among neighbors,” Jennifer Kirby said in a statement. “And when we’re connected to each other — when we discover the common bonds we share — we’re more likely to work together in ways that will enrich and strengthen our community.”

Members of the new foundation board are:

• Jennifer Kirby (chair)
• Scott Christensen
• Charles Gullickson
• Alex Hagen
• Jason Herrboldt
• Don Kearney
• Kim Patrick
• Steve Sanford
• Rochelle Sweetman
• Bill Townsend

In collaboration with the city of Sioux Falls and the Parks and Recreation Department, the Sioux Falls Parks Foundation will work to provide donors with opportunities and ideas for strategic investments in community parks. The foundation’s work will be defined by the community’s goals and needs. Foundation board members also will be talking about how the parks system could fit into residents’ estate planning.

“The whole idea is to find donors that might have an interest in supporting the parks system with projects we’ve identified as priorities,” said Don Kearney, the city’s parks and recreation director.

“It’s happened organically over the years where we’ll get approached by a donor, or we’ll make a connection and it just happened. But now to have someone proactively doing it could raise the bar and really even see more public-private partnerships.”

The parks department already has some ideas in mind, he said.

And with the newly announced Falls Park master plan, more opportunities will surface.

“The new Sioux Falls Parks Foundation will foster even greater community investments in our parks and continue this tradition of public-private partnership success,” Mayor Paul TenHaken said in a statement. “I can’t wait to see the exciting parks and recreation opportunities that arise from this collaborative new effort.”

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