Grants help build nature center and park.Aurora Parks & Open Space Department staff have blended a million dollars in gifts and grants to help address the needs of a wide variety of park user groups for many years to come. The Morrison Family Foundation awarded a $550,0o0 grant to fund the conversion of a 60-year-old ranch house into the interpretive Morrison Nature Center. Located in Star K Ranch, this 200-acre natural open space property is within the Sand Creek Sand Creek, Colorado, site of a massacre (1864) of Cheyenne by Col. John M. Chivington and his Colorado Volunteers. The Cheyennes, led by their chief, Black Kettle, had offered to make peace and, at the suggestion of military personnel, had encamped at Sand Creek Regional Greenway. The 13-mile trail greenway network links three metropolitan communities (Aurora, Commerce City, Denver) to the Platte River Platte River River, central Nebraska, U.S. Formed by the confluence of the North Platte and South Platte rivers, it is 310 mi (500 km) long. It flows southeast into a big bend at Kearney, Neb., then empties into the Missouri River at Plattsmouth, south of Omaha. in Colorado. The Morrison Foundation donation, the last grant to be made by this organization, was combined with funding from the Adams County Adams County is the name of twelve counties in the United States. Most of them are named either for John Adams, second President of the United States, or for his son, John Quincy Adams, sixth President. Open Space program, Sand Creek Regional Greenway Partnership and the city of Aurora to complete the budget for this $1.1 million renovation program. Adams County Open Space Committee cited this project with the Partnership award as a result of the extraordinary multi-agency cooperation needed to bring the project to reality. Another gift of $500,000 was conveyed to General's Park by the University of Colorado Hospital University of Colorado Hospital is the principal teaching hospital for the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, located in Aurora, Colorado. In the most recent (2007) U.S. Center for Dependency and Addiction Recovery. The center is to be built adjacent to General's Park in northwest Aurora. Park renovation plans had been in design as the gift was announced, which will facilitate funding the $1.6 million park reconstruction. The 8.8-acre park property had been an 1890's commercial nursery and later was part of the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center The Fitzsimons Army Medical Center (formerly the Fitzsimons Army Hospital) was a medical facility of the United States military during the 20th century located on 577 acres (2.3 km²) in Aurora, Colorado. . New, large group pavilions, theme playgrounds and restoration of a park pond used by former President Dwight Eisenhower during his cardiac rehabilitation Cardiac Rehabilitation Definition Cardiac rehabilitation is a comprehensive exercise, education, and behavioral modification program designed to improve the physical and emotional condition of patients with heart disease. , will be features of the fully accessible park. Two significant commemorative features are planned. The Aurora Veterans' Commission is planning a bronze sculpture bronze sculpture. Bronze is ideal for casting art works; it flows into all crevices of a mold, thus perfectly reproducing every detail of the most delicately modeled sculpture. It is malleable beneath the graver's tool and admirable for repoussé work. honoring City veterans. Four local Rotary clubs have raised a $100,000 budget for a historical arbor structure celebrating local history within the 100-year anniversary of Rotary. Groundbreaking is scheduled for February 2005, the centennial anniversary of world-wide community service by Rotary International. |
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