Metro East Park and Recreation District (MEPRD) announced on Monday that it has awarded a $16,000 community planning grant to the Village of Godfrey for its forthcoming project titled: Vision 2020-2030 Parks and Recreation Comprehensive Master Plan.

The Village of Godfrey is the first recipient of MEPRD’s new FY20 Community Planning Grant Program, which launched on January 15, 2020. The Program is designed to encourage local governments and other regional agencies within MEPRD’s jurisdiction to invest in township, community, or county-wide comprehensive park planning and bicycle-pedestrian planning.

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Godfrey’s Vision 2020-2030 project, specifically, will include developing and adopting a community-wide parks and recreation master plan, which is to replace its existing Citizens Park System Comprehensive Plan from 2004. The resulting plan will feature a renewed vision for the parks and recreation system, along with an updated set of recommendations and 10-year action plan for the Village’s facilities, amenities, and programs. The planning project is set to begin later this year and is expected to be completed in 2021

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MEPRD estimates that, currently, as few as 1 in 5 communities in St. Clair and Madison counties have a bicycle-pedestrian master plan on file, while only 1 in 4 have a park master plan; and of the existing plans, several are outdated and in need of an update. “MEPRD’s new grant program has the potential to bridge that gap, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for the next decade of parks and recreation-related improvements across the region,” commented Cole Preston, MEPRD Grant Coordinator.

The Community Planning Grant Program is one of three programs administrated by MEPRD, all of which serve to advance its legislative duty to develop, maintain and operate a public system of parks and interconnected trails in Madison and St. Clair Counties. Since its formation in 2000, the Metro East Park and Recreation District has provisioned more than $28 Million in grant funding to local and regional entities within its jurisdiction; a total of 144 completed and ongoing projects have been funded in-part by MEPRD.

For more information about the MEPRD FY20 Community Planning Grant Program, please refer to the application, a copy of which can be downloaded at www.meprd.org/funding.html.

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