Biddeford will use a grant from the Elmira B. Sewell Foundation to make Clifford Park safer and more accessible to users, city officials announced Monday.
The $52,500 grant from the foundation’s Healthy People, Healthy Places program will allow several city departments and the Heart of Biddeford blaze new trails, clean up debris more easily and add signs to increase safety on the trails.
Clifford Park, a short walk from downtown Biddeford, is a 140-acre park in the middle of the city. It is often championed by city officials as a “jewel” for both Biddeford and surrounding communities.
The Heart of Biddeford, a nonprofit that promotes the downtown, will administer the grant while working with Friends of Clifford Park and the city’s public works and recreation departments on various projects.
The grant will pay for the purchase of a utility terrain vehicle to carry branches and trash off Clifford Park trails. The vehicle will be operated by trained park stewards who will be hired to clean up and maintain the park and provide more human visibility on the trail system. They will also patrol areas where illegal fires are sometimes spotted.
Grant funds also will be used to bring the Maine Conservation Corps to the park to re-blaze the Black Trail, add raised bridges over wet portions of the Red and Orange trails, and provide honorarium to event presenters.
“Clifford Park is a jewel that belongs to the city of Biddeford and its surrounding communities, and it was really a diamond in the rough until Dana Peck, Catherine Glynn and Katie Labbe came together under Heart of Biddeford’s guidance to set up Friends of Clifford Park,” Mary Schindler of Friends of Clifford Park said in a statement. “Since then, the park has slowly emerged from an era of neglect and is coming into its own. This funding from the Sewall Foundation will be another great step forward for the benefit of the park and all its users.”
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