One of our favorite family pastimes is visiting Brooker Creek Preserve for its hikes, story time and hands-on education center.
While visiting the center the other day, I heard some heartbreaking news. Brooker Creek Preserve faces closure due to budget cuts. Pinellas county commissioners have drastically reduced the staff and the operating hours of the center despite the facility already relying heavily volunteers to run its programs.
As a resident of a neighboring county, I would gladly pay an entrance fees to keep the gates of Brooker Creek Preserve and Weedon Island open to support these invaluable resources and the many lessons taught there.
Both centers offer wonderful lessons of our delicate ecosystems and local history.
I would rather share with my children lessons of conservation rather than sad stories of bureaucrats not seeing the beauty and educational value in such wonderful places.
Since Pinellas residents already pay significant taxes to support these centers, county officials should promote both centers as points of interest to tourists and draw revenue from its visitors and residents outside of Pinellas rather than closing its gates permanently.
If you live in the Tampa Bay area, I urge to support these centers by asking Pinellas County Commissioners to reconsider their position or contact The Friends of Brooker Creek and The Friends of Weedon Island to learn how you can help.
From the Friends of Brooker Creek Preserve website:
The Friends will continue to provide as much support as possible for programs and other needs at Brooker Creek Preserve. We are in the process of finding ways to raise funds to that end. To succeed, we need YOU! We are looking for ideas, event planning assistance, and some energized hands. If you are interested in joining us in this important mission, please contact us at 727-934-2680 or [email protected].
What a beautiful place! Its a shame how so much of what makes an area great is often overlooked by politicians in order to make money. Great post!
Happy Saturday Sharefest!
What a lovely place. It’s so sad to see those things happen.
The name of your blog is too funny. 🙂 I’m not a runner, but I feel like I need to be to do all that I do as a mom!
Happy SITS Saturday!
It looks like a fantastic place, it’d be such a shame if it does close
Looks like a great place! I hope that they’re able to keep them open for families to enjoy!!
Happy Saturday Sharefest!
Just stopping by from SITS to wish you a very happy SITS Saturday Sharefest! Have a great weekend!
Wow, glad you stopped by. What wonderful thing you do running for marathons. I will def stop by again, please come again.
I LOVE the lines in that first shot. What a beautiful place!
I love Weedon Island, it’s much closer to my house than Brooker Creek. I’m actually taking friends and ours kids to Brooker Creek for the first time this Friday. I would gladly pay an entrance fee to both of these places. We usually bring a couple of dollars each time we visit Weedon Island to make a donation. I really hope that they find a solution that keeps both preserves open.
We love Brooker Creek and Weedon Island! We actually had my son’s 5th birthday party at Weedon Island last year. I am so glad they were able to remain open. I’m always recommending that people visit these two preserves because they are so beautiful and have excellent education centers. I need to go out to story time soon. I bet that’s a lot of fun. Here’s a link my Weedon Island Birthday Party post. http://jennlikesit.com/2012/04/outdoor-birthday-party-in-st-petersburg/
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