January 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 18

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

P r i vate G i v i ng

High-Profile Help for Hometown Parks
By Maureen Hannan

elebrity philanthropy is
nothing new. From Bono to
Jimmy Buffett, Hollywood's
r ich a nd fa mous have
championed causes as
sweeping as world hunger and as specialized as saving manatees. The thread
uniting most celebrity causes in the past
has been their non-local nature. Whether curing diseases, saving species, or
confronting human rights abuses, celeb
charities have traditionally transcended borders. There appears, however,
to be a quiet new trend in celebrity giving: hometown park donations. The park
projects adopted by movie stars, pop divas, sports icons, and media moguls are
diverse, but behind them all is a simple
attachment to local quality of life. And, in
many cases, that drive is magnified by
the desire to share a passion, restore a
place, or preserve a memory.

baseball fields. When the novelist and
his family moved to Virginia's rural Albemarle County from Oxford, Mississippi, 15 years ago, Grisham was
frustrated by the 20 miles he had to
drive his son to play Little League. And
it saddened him that so few kids in his
small, hilly town were being introduced
to the sport he loved. Grisham's answer
was to buy 100 acres, level the terrain,
and open " Cove Creek Park " -a Little League baseball complex for which
the author footed the entire multi-million dollar bill. And, as commissioner,
Grisham continues to oversee the management of the park-ensuring that the
bills are paid, the fields kept perfectly manicured, and players held to high
standards of sportsmanship.

John Grisham
A Field of Dreams in Virginia

Last August, 20-year-old pop superstar
Taylor Swift donated $100,000 to help
rebuild a playground in Hendersonville,
Tennessee, where the singer-songwriter attended high school and lived with
her family until recently. The donation
was part of an effort by Swift to help her

Novelist John Grisham's earliest ambition was to be a major league baseball
player. And, while he was growing up in
small towns in Arkansas and Mississippi,
Grisham's life revolved around the local

16 Parks & Recreation

JANUARY 2011

Taylor Swift
Restoring a " Kids Kingdom "
in Tennessee

www.NRPA .ORG

" It's overwhelming.
We didn't expect that. "
-Dave LeMarbre, Hendersonville,
Tennessee, parks director,
commenting on Taylor Swift's recent
donation of $100,000 to rebuild a
flood-damaged park in
her hometown.
hometown with its recent flood relief efforts. The Kids Kingdom playground,
damaged enough by recent f looding
to be unsafe (yet not completely destroyed), was deemed ineligible for insurance money. Now, because of Swift's
donation, the park is to be torn down and
rebuilt. " It's overwhelming, " says Hendersonville parks director Dave LeMarbre. " We didn't expect that. "

Kevin Bacon
Preserving New York's High Line
Actor Kevin Bacon is a longtime resident
of the Chelsea District on Manhattan's
West Side. Like many of his neighbors,
Bacon found the derelict, 1.4-mile elevated steel railway looming above the
West Side Highway to

January 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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