Highlighting a Fantastic Year in Forest Park
Highlighting a Fantastic Year in Forest Park
A Banner, Record-Setting Year
The milestone was marked with a birthday celebration featuring a performance by artists in residence The 442s and a year-long Twitter campaign from the voice of the Park. Many people shared their own memories of the Park using the hashtag #HappyBdayForestPark and media outlets like St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Public Radio and West End Word highlighted this important anniversary.
To mark the 30th anniversary of Forest Park Forever's founding, we commissioned three artist groups to create new work in and inspired by Forest Park. Hundreds of people took part in the artists' public programming and the project received significant attention from the local media, including features on St. Louis Public Radio and HEC-TV.
This spring, Forest Park was voted the #1 city park in the U.S. by the readers of USA Today. Then a few weeks later, Thrillist.com also put us in the top spot.
This inaugural event, emceed by Fox 2's Jasmine Huda, included learning stations with all the major Forest Park destinations and partners, a special presentation by Forest Park Forever and the City of St. Louis and the 2016 presentation of the Keeper of Forest Park Award.
Forest Park Forever's perennially popular Hat Luncheon drew a record crowd in 2016 and raised over $400,000 for Park maintenance and operations. You can look through photo galleries of the event from both Town & Style and Ladue News.
The sixth annual I Love Forest Park 5K attracted over 800 runners – a 20% increase over 2015
Our Young Friends introduced this new annual event in August of 2016. Twenty-three teams joined us for a fun-filled day on the greens and fairways of Probstein Golf Course. The tournament raised over $25,000 to support our mission to restore, maintain and sustain Forest Park.
Forest Park Forever received this honor from the St. Louis Green Business Challenge. We continue to strive for greater sustainability across our operations.
Forest Park Forever President and Executive Director Lesley S. Hoffarth, P.E. was honored twice during 2016 — first as a Most Influential Business Woman by the St. Louis Business Journal, and then by being named to the Power List by St. Louis Magazine.
Forest Park Forever and the City of St. Louis continue earning national attention for our productive partnership here in the Park. Two examples during 2016: Forest Park Forever co-hosted a national forum on park management with Central Park Conservancy in the summer, and in the fall, City and Forest Park Forever leaders spoke to National Recreation and Parks Association conference attendees about why our model works so well.