The REACH San Benito Parks Foundation recently completed and distributed a new Parks Location Guide to help locals and visitors pinpoint all locations for parks in the county.
The REACH San Benito Parks Foundation’s mission is to raise funds and advocate for more and improved sustainable parks and recreation facilities, along with ensuring healthy living for all residents in San Benito County.
“All of our funding that we do get at this point is outreach, advocating for parks,” said Valery Egland, president of REACH San Benito Parks Foundation. “That’s why we did the Parks Location Guide.”
The guides —23,000 in total — were distributed to all area hotels and motels along with other sites such as the Hollister Community Center, the San Benito County Chamber of Commerce, Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, Casa de Fruta, the San Benito County Historical Park, the San Juan Bautista Visitors Center, Thousand Trails RV Park, the San Juan Bautista Plaza State Park and San Juan Bautista City Hall.
The guide includes maps of the county along with numbers attached to specific parks and other facilities run by local, state or national park agencies.
The foundation developed the guide with help from Schipper Design, which donated its time as part of a grant program run out of the San Juan Bautista business. The REACH foundation also received some funding help in printing and postage from local governments.
Egland said area hotels and other organizations, such as the Bureau of Land Management, were grateful for the publicity of park facilities.
“People of humble circumstance were those that were most gracious and most grateful for having that resource,” Egland said, mentioning Cinderella Motel as an example. “So it tells me that our target group for improving health was appreciated and it got to them.”
The REACH organization started in 2012 out of a suggestion by the San Benito County Parks & Recreation Commission. The organization does all its own fundraising.
Below are the front and back of the Parks Location Guide along with the REACH San Benito Parks Foundation logo.
