Wehr Nature Center Fund Drive Will Pay for Changes

Rendering of the Nature Explore Area.

Last year, Wehr Nature Center embarked on an ambitious five-year plan to upgrade the park, and it’s making good progress.

Thanks to fundraising by the Friends of Wehr Nature Center, the center already has approximately 30% of the fundraising it needs for its five year plan, and has entered planning and design for three projects.

Last year, as the nature center celebrated its 50th anniversary, center staff worked with friends group to develop the five-year plan with concepts for new projects around the park. It’s located in Franklin at 9701 W. College Ave., and contains a 220-acre nature preserve and five miles of hiking trail. Project concepts ranged from trail redesigns to an owl habitat.

To date, the Friends Group has managed to fundraise approximately $190,000 for three major project areas included in the five year plan: a new service yard, a natural play area for children and new designs for three trails in the park. Last year, the nature center estimated the total cost of the five-year plan at approximately $600,000.

Upon hearing of the fundraising success, Sup. Steve Taylor said the friends group was doing “outstanding” work at a meeting of the county board’s Committee on Parks and Culture.

The group has raised approximately $150,000 for a new service yard to replace “three well-loved sheds,” said Carly Hintz, Wehr Nature Center Director. It’s the largest project funded so far.

Another $10,000 has been raised to build out a new Nature Explore Area for children in the Maple Woods, Hintz said. Kids spend far more time indoors looking at screens than they do outside these days, Hintz said. The new explore area will give kids a place to “build forts” and “flip logs and see what kind of animals, insects are living under them.”

Three trail projects have been funded at $10,000 each. The funding will be used to redesign and improve the All-Abilities Trail, which is a boardwalk that has been expanded over the years, Hintz said, as well as the Prairie Trail and the Lake Loop Trail.

Projects in the plan that aren’t yet funded include a new canopies for the amphitheater, an outdoor classroom, an owl habitat and an erosion control project. The owl habitat will allow the nature center to restart its owl program, which it has not had since its last owl more than a decade ago.