Highlights of Year 2011
During 2011, Friends of Griffith Park has made significant strides in our mission to conserve and preserve Griffith Park:
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Serving as Griffith Park's most energetic advocate. We testified at public meetings on policy, commented and advised on environmental and recreational issues, raised consciousness about historic preservation, lobbied to increase park funding, and opposed inappropriate developments such as the plan to introduce commercial advertising into city parks. We kept our members and the public informed through our publications and web site and promoted practices that reinforce Colonel Griffith's vision of the Park as a free and natural refuge from urban pressure.
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Providing financial support for initiatives unique to Griffith Park. We received grants from the Natural Trust for Historic Preservation and the Griffith J. Griffith Charitable Trust to create a blueprint for the rehabilitation of historic Fern Dell. We received a technical assistance grant from the Recreation, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program of the National Park Service to help us preserve and enhance the historic De Anza Trail in Griffith Park. We contributed funding to the Griffith Park Natural History Survey which is cataloguing the Park's plants and animals, and supported UCLA's Urban Carnivore Study focusing on the Park's native bobcats.
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Promoting education as a key to sustaining Griffith Park. We underwrote and co-led a series of hikes that brought hundreds of urban kids to the Park and taught them about its natural wonders. We launched the free Griffith Park Lecture Series at the Los Feliz Branch Library featuring authors and academics speaking on the Park's human and natural history. We spoke before community groups on the Park's significance and contributed books relating to the Park to local libraries.
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Establishing a program of service in Griffith Park. We assembled a database of volunteers and embarked on a schedule of Park clean ups, graffiti paint-outs, and other hands-on improvements, including the removal of invasive plant species injurious to Griffith Park's native flora.
Friends of Griffith Park has a passionate board and positive community partnerships, but we need your continued support to ensure that Griffith Park remains L.A.'s signature green and open space, place of free recreation, and linchpin in the survival of Southern California's native ecosystems. Please take a moment to become a member or renew your membership if you've previously supported us.
