March 2016 - Parks & Recreation - 39

summit on the first day, empowering
attendee thinking for the two days
ahead while also providing a charge
of inspiration. Autumn Saxton-Ross,
program director for Place-Based Initiatives for the National Collaborative
for Health Equity, also brought new
insight to the conversation by sharing about the health benefits of trails
along with the need to ensure equity
when considering access.
Prior to the Trails Summit, we had
meaningful dialogue with our partners, giving us much greater clarity
into what people desire from our
trails, what shared goals we have and
what hurdles potentially impede our
pathways forward. What we heard
validates what we have known:
* Develop a sustainable trails program
in all areas, ranging from maintenance to volunteer utilization.
* Incorporate and embrace technology for trail information, maintenance and construction.
* Improve access to trail systems.
* Streamline and maximize efficiencies for using partnerships and volunteers.
* Have quality data, via multiple
data sets, and collaborative data
sharing locally among local, state
and federal agencies.
* Be innovative in finding ways to
improve access to training for both
employees and volunteers.
* Increase support for youth corps
programs.
* Place greater emphasis on stewardship.
A key part of our focus with this
project also included being keenly
introspective, seeking to better understand our own internal challenges as
an agency in achieving a sustainable
trails system. While it could have
been easy to be dismayed or stumped
for the right answers, in rallying to

In our own conversations
with fellow partners, we
began to harness new
vision, capacity and
energy in seeing the
future of trails.
gether with our partners, it soon became apparent that many of us face
the very same challenges. We also
realized something that is very important but sometimes is easy to lose
sight of: We are not alone, and we do
not have to shoulder this responsibility single-handedly. In fact, if we were
to be successful, we knew it would
take all of us working together to create this paradigm shift.
As we worked with NRPA as cohosts for the Trails Summit, we saw
how its Three Pillars - Conservation, Health and Wellness, and Social Equity - spoke to our work.
NRPA seeks to impact communities

through these three areas. In our own
conversations with fellow partners,
we began to harness new vision, capacity and energy in seeing the future
of trails. From looking at the health
benefits of trails to focusing on the
stewardship piece of trail care and
maintenance, we found a commonality in our own approach and the
work of NRPA.
While it sometimes feels daunting
to face the challenges that stymie our
work, ranging from lacking resources
to how best to retool processes, we are
not alone in our efforts to improve
how we seek to connect and support
others. From a national forest to a
city's park and recreation department,
we are connected through a shared
sense of purpose in serving the public. In sharing resources, ideas and
thinking holistically, we bring greater
capacity, vision and empowerment to
our work. Collaboration is indeed vital, perhaps now more than ever.
Amanda Patrick is a Public Affairs Specialist
and Project Manager at the U.S. Forest
Service (apatrick@fs.fed.us).

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March 2016 - Parks & Recreation

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