Ep. 26: Caren Glotfelty of the Allegheny County Parks Foundation

Transcription:

So everybody getting outdoors, it's a big deal. It's an important thing. It's 100% of part of our tech ecosystem here in Pittsburgh. We want a great quality life and we will have parks to get out to nature to hang out with and kind of get away from the hubbub of every day. We're not going to go far as a region in our region is blessed with an incredible number of parks. My favorite parks are county parks and got nine of them in, they're all wonderful. And today we are talking to Caren Glotfelty, who's the executive director of the Allegheny County Parks Foundation. And of course, making this happen today is Comcast helping me tell these 50 stories. We are about halfway through our storytelling. And I was really looking forward to doing this story because it'd be totally transparent to our viewers and listeners, I'm on the board of the Parks Foundation. I think it's such an important organization that's really helping people get out in nature and just connect. And I that's why I'm excited to talk to you today because your background and experience is just simply amazing. And what you've done with the parks now has been so impactful. I mean, I see it every time I ride my bike out in the county parks. I think I see more people out there than ever, as far as that goes. And Jonathan, thanks for talking to me today. Welcome to the show.

Thank you glad to be here. Real quickly, what's your background real fast?

I know you've got a pretty fascinating background. You've done a lot of cool things in in your career. And I think the Parks Foundation is so lucky to have you because like I said, You're really the one that's put this thing into overdrive and has really made that impact as well. Yeah, but my my part sedation job is kind of my post retirement gig I but after a year, I was asked to come back and lead the Allegheny County Parks Foundation. I started my professional life with a degree in landscape architecture and Regional Planning is what brought me to Pennsylvania from California where I was born and raised. Okay. I've had a number of jobs across the state. Most of them in state government at one time, I ran all the water programs for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental resources as a deputy secretary. I taught by natural resources policy at Penn State for a few years. And then I worked at the Heinz and Delmon says the Environment Program Director for 13 years and I retired from there and but I love the Parks Foundation job because it's really it truly is a capstone it brought every single thing I ever learned in my previous life. To this to bear in trying to figure out how you run a small but mighty nonprofit organization, how you work in a positive way with with government. We are the very close partner of the Allegheny County Parks Department and Allegheny County and making the parks better and that relationship is just so strong and so positive I just I don't know, I don't think I ever want to retire again.

As you say, it's always important to brought you out of retirement. And that's something like we got a gig for you. Wait a second, I got stuff to do like Boyce Park and I look out over the park every day. It's wonderful. I will I do miss being there for board meetings because every time I go there, I feel like elementary school like looking at like something that reminds me of being in school as a kid and having to nature so close. Or maybe it's the old snake tank that makes me feel like I'm going to school. But it's a nice facility. It definitely plugged you right into the park, that's for sure.

Yeah, exactly. Like I said, it's a very unique thing that the foundation works so closely with the county itself. At the board meeting. We have Rich Fitzgerald there, which is always great. I mean, this is one of his passions, without a doubt. And we have 90 these awesome parks and I think people don't always realize that there's nine of them. And that is that like a lot of parks are an area size Allegheny County compared to like the rest of the country. Do you think?

It's, um, I don't know where we rank in terms of these county and Metropolitan parks systems. But I know we're, we're way up there in terms of not only the number of parks but the number of acres in 12,000 acres in our nine county parks. And that's a lot of land. I've looked for lists that somebody may have compiled of of the only list I've ever been able to come up with only raised the size of city park systems gotcha. Question where the whole county of so maybe somebody will do that research, but I know we're very blessed to have such a large and diverse set of parks here.

Absolutely. With 12,000 acres that means there's a lot of room for bears to be wandering about right? My favorite thing is I had to bring it up. I think when the first time we interviewed you, I was like thinking, Man, I know there's a bear out there somewhere. I'm like, Caren, has there ever been a bear sighting in a county park?

You know, I think I think after that, Jonathan, you asked me that question. I didn't know. I went back and asked Andy Beckley, our parks director, if he ever had seen bears, and he said he thought there had been seen in North Park. Yeah, so I don't know. I think it's quite possible. These are big, big tracts of land with a lot of forest cover. And I think it's highly possible that there might be bears there from time to time. Absolutely. What would you say is your favorite of the county parks or can you actually pick a favorite?

Well, you know, I shouldn't name a favorite County Park. I share the love among all the parks, but I'll tell you why. I like to watch birds  and Harrison Hills is our lesser known parks I think

Exactly.

But it really is a wonderful place for bird watching because of its location up above the Allegheny River. Was there a way you know, for migrating hawks and eagles and it's got a pretty diverse landscape so that, you know, if you're a birdwatcher, it's a great place to be. But each of our county parks is really different from each other.

Yeah, it's a good point. It really does. Yeah, so they each have their own strengths and, and own, you know, unique features. So I think we've just got a system that people need to visit every one of them.

I agree. That's like a tour you like check it off on account, right? That's right, my favorite Park south park today, which makes me I feel like I could get a south park right now. I'd love to be out there right now. riding the bike. Be in between Yeah, no that kind of.

Yeah. Well, Jonathan you it you're a biker so you organize a tour to parks where that would be awesome.

Park the park and then around each Park, you know, now you're talking. That gives me an idea now. That could be so much fun. I would love it. Great way to showcase these nine jewels that we have. Yeah, I think so without a doubt without a doubt. So this year's been crazy. As we all know, 2020 has been the Europe COVID-19 I think they should have called the COVID 20 as far as I'm concerned, but good news for as many bugs to refigure our plans. And when the big things the highlight of the Parks Foundation is the Twilight picnic in the park at heartwood acres happens in August. I mean this is like a just a beautiful event. And it is like it's a huge fundraiser into so much to help the park execute on what it does, and we'll go into that in a little bit. But but this is a little different. We can't get folks safely into into tight space. And tents and things like that. So we've kind of switched it up. Can you tell us how we're switching up and trying to raise awareness of the parks, and also generate some much needed funds in order to keep these parks accessible when keeping the awesome things that they are?

Yeah. Well, like every other nonprofit organization in Pittsburgh from, you know, sort of when we first became aware that COVID was going to be around for a while, we kept going through various plans, you know, plan Plan A was to do our fourth wonderful Twilight picnic as you described it, and, you know, we quickly went to plan B, which was fewer people and then Plan C, which was no people in virtual and that just didn't seem like it was gonna work really well, because a lot of people were doing that so we were very lucky to have had some loyal supporters of our Twilight techniques and and we reached out to them and said, hey, what would you think? Instead of sponsoring an event to raise money for the Parks Foundation, and our operations, to sponsor the parks this year and, and give us, you know, give us let us keep the money that you've pledged to us. And we'll use that to support our operations to continue to work with the county on making the parks better and better. And for every single one of our sponsors said that sounds like a great idea. Love it. So what we're going to be doing is a series of social media ads, that'll be on Facebook and other platforms on our own website and will be thanking our sponsors in that way with really cool out so you'll like them a lot. They catch taglines and it's a way to say thank you and recognize our financial sponsors. It's a way to keep our organization and you know, in people's minds so that hopefully next time Cheer in 2021 we'll all be able to safely gather again and do another Twilight picnic but but it has the added benefit of letting the public know how valuable the parks have been. Any people this summer we don't have a way to regularly track attendance at the parks. Beautiful turnstile. We're just pushing through. Yeah.

Any one of those things that you put in the street when you're a little cable.

You know, so many of the people who visit the park coming cars. We did a we did a survey about five years ago, and we plan to do that again. But that's a pretty labor intensive process and no, you don't do it every month. But, but we have noticed that the parking lots are overflowing in a way that we haven't seen during the summer. in most areas of most of our parks, and so many of them have bike racks on the back and bikes are off the rack. So we know people are out there, they're in the woods.

So, you know, so we do have ways of measuring what the use of our parks are that's more qualitative than quantitative. And we know that we know that people, especially people, maybe who've been working remotely or perhaps have been furloughed, even how important it has been for them to have this big open space beautiful, not far from home where they can kind of get out and and get some respite by being in nature and just kind of feel a little freer than you do. When you're cooped up at home all day.

I would say I fall directly into that category. It's what my my tonic might used to do is getting on my bike and being in the parks that is for sure. And yeah, it's amazing man. Get out there and just spend a few hours is realize things are gonna be cool.

We we have we hired a videographer to put together a little, you know, four minute video that kind of captures in the parks and it's not quite ready to publish yet but, boy, there's some awesome stories that people are telling about absolutely important these parts have been for their mental health, their physical health, even their spiritual health. And you know, it's just, I think, very, very poignant example of how valuable this resource is and has been absolutely 100% I can't wait for that video to come out. I saw a sneak peek of it the other day and I was like I kept watching it on for about 15 minutes because it was so much fun now. What I love about it is that it's here. It's here in Pittsburgh is here in Allegheny County. And that's what makes it to me so magical is that All this beauty and wonderment is a short drive for me like a long bike ride. I like riding my bike to the park, because I'm kind of Yeah, but but for me, it's like, yeah, we have. We're just so blessed with these parks. So let's talk about some of the cool projects that the Parks Foundation is doing. One of the biggest ones that are underway is the sculpture garden at heartland acres. This is an amazing thing. I remember my first interaction with a sculpture garden. There was probably about 20 years ago when I was first learning to ride my bike and 14 acres and I had no idea what these sculptures were. They were random, they were kind of falling apart. I used to actually ride my bike up and onto them sometimes places. Oh, yeah. Did you like Why not? And then I realized I joined the board. These are some pretty important sculptures. And they need to be restored and they need to be put to a proper context.

Yeah, exactly. That was about that.

But you know, I think that that all came about. I know that all came about in the mid 1980s. Okay. And heartwood was open to the public. And the parks director at the time said this is going to be the Arts and Culture Park of nine county parks system and Alligator, because has this beautiful mansion. And they anticipated giving tours and, you know, holding events in the mansion. But the parks director built an amphitheater which is still there today, and it's the summer concert series. Of course, that series isn't happening this year, although the parks departments doing some pretty cool stuff on the internet also, but the parks director happened to be Carol Brown, who later went on to become head of the cultural trust and she knew a lot of artists and imagined what it would be like to put artworks around the park and all of them were donated 13 to what 12 I believe were donated. To the county at that time, but she went on to do other things. And, you know, I don't know that that the county realized what it would take to keep these pieces. Exactly right. Lost in the paint faded and some of them were vandalized with graffiti and that they're important works of art. Some of them are, well, most of them are by well known artists who have international reputations. They're worth quite a lot of money. The whole collection is several million dollars worth of artwork knew that thinking back in the day when these things were out there there was no markers telling you what they were over there and the front tire Oh, yeah, no worries.

No idea.

So it's really funny when I first came to the Parks Foundation, people who had you know, say say things to me about the sculptures in either say, you have got to find the money to to you know, restore these And do some interpretation or the other side of the coin was Could you just get rid of them?

No, we can't.

So we you know, the Parks Foundation started raising money to to restore the pieces and as you put it, I think was the right terminology, put them in their proper context, do some lovely landscaping, build some accessible walkways, interpret them and just make it a lovely new destination in heartwood acres and so that we have been restoring them over this past summer. Some of them you can already see the two of them were completed restoration completed on site recently and they look great. On several they're at a conservation laboratory in Ohio that are going to be coming back in August. And so you know, gradually the pieces will be added the construction of the garden aspects the landscaping, the walkways, the lighting of the year, the plant materials, signage that will happen in 2021.

Gotcha. It's so exciting to see that come back, I think it becomes this very unique thing. We all think of the parks, like new hiking and biking and you know, playing tennis, but the idea that we have this really cool Sculpture Garden, it's crazy, like famous, you know, sculptures, and then to actually have them be interpreted and in their context and be able to be part of that and go through it. I think it's really amazing. And it really sets the county parks apart, that's for sure.

Yeah, and we're already imagining that these, this, this whole setting now will be a wonderful place for events like little jazz concert. So, know those little cocktail parties, little educational tours. Were there a lot of ways to activate this area that I also think is going to add interest in action activity to the park?

Definitely. So what are you talking about? Are you one or two more projects quickly? Like one of the things I think is really interesting are the Cascades. Yeah, I can sound absolutely amazing.

Yeah, so the Cascades is a whole different kind of feature. South Park was one of the first to parks and that were part of the Allegheny County Park System. And the parks director in the in the late 20s. And early 30s was a landscape architect who loved kind of the Frank Lloyd Wright style of police always was his name. And he designed just an amazing set of features in both North and South Park. One of which is called the cascades and it was a little, there was a natural spring on in this particular location. And Paul rescored Stone out of another part of the park and built up a series of flat rock, little cliffs and pools and waterfalls and it's rather small and scale but it's like a series of wading pools and you can see all photographs of families going there in the 40s. Sitting around dangling their feet in the water, having fun.

Having a good time. You think that maybe you were at Yellowstone or something? Exactly, exactly.

Really cool. I'll admit that I've ridden my bike on that in South Park. Really right by there. We always needed these old pools that he could ride around the rim on your bike. It was tons of fun. Oh boy.

Oh, boy. Well, we there's a really cool video that the Pittsburgh Penguins Foundation's did there. On our website that you can, you're interested in looking at that site. But the Pittsburgh Penguins have are important partner for this project. They're contributing about a quarter of the cost of restoration. The counties, you know, and we've raised money. So that project is the construction supposed to start this fall.

I'm so excited about it wonderful to see it come back and people who actually know it's there and experience it as it was meant to experience back in the 1930s. I think it's just amazing. What's more amazing is the story that you're at the Parks Foundation doing what you're doing, because just the two examples you've given us right now just to show you the power of having an organization that brings these different entities together to make things happen and make our ecosystem better to make our environment better so we can all chill out and enjoy a little nature and see some sculptures and have some fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And um, You know, I think the Parks Foundation has been really, really important because these are projects that the county loves. But they probably wouldn't have risen to the priority level necessary to bring them about because they're sort of expensive. And the county budget is limited, and he's got to spend its money in up the picnic shelters and the road systems and all of those things and to spend a million dollars on restoring the Cascades probably wouldn't have done something possible for the blue button. A million bucks pays a lot of roads, right? Yeah. Then then it really makes it a priority.

That's why I think it's so cool to this organization. This organization exists. You're here leading up I'm just honored to be on the board. Tiny little teeny tiny part in the whole thing. It's a little bit that story today. I think it's just been super fantastic. I encourage everybody participate in The parks, give some money to the Parks Foundation because they're doing this great work that is wouldn't happen otherwise. Karen, you are making Pittsburgh proud.

Thank you. Thank you, Jonathan. Good stuff all around everybody. And once again, get out there, be active have fun. Pittsburgh's got nine awesome county parks. They're all fun in their own different way.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai