A sincere thank you for making our Fall Fundraiser a success

We are grateful to the more than 75 parks enthusiasts who joined Mass Parks for All (MPA) at our recent Fall Fundraiser at Boston’s historic St. Botolph Club. We are also grateful to our event sponsors, those who donated to the cause but were unable to attend, and especially to our hosts, MPA co-chair, Michele Hanss and her husband Bob, who secured this amazing venue would not have been available. It was, by all accounts, a night to remember.

It was also a night among friends of our public open spaces, and an evening that served to reconnect many old friends and colleagues who collectively have centuries of support for our parks and other public open spaces.

The distinguished guest list included state Sen. Jamie Eldridge, a true parks friend who increased the Department of Conservation and Recreation’s (DCR) FY2026 operations budget by $500,000 with a Senate floor amendment; new DCR Commissioner Nicole LaChapelle, Herb Nolan, executive director of the Lawrence & Lillian Solomon Foundation, MPA’s primary sponsor, and Kathy Abbott, President and CEO of Boston Harbor Now and an MPA advisory board member.

Abbott shared a heartwarming tribute to our dear departed founder and board member Betsy Shure Gross, whom she had known for more than 40 years as a friend, mentor, and a fearless public land protection advocate. 

“Betsy led wherever she went and supported others to lead,” Abbott said. “She taught us all to see the problems and to step up to fix them.”

Commissioner LaChapelle, who gave the keynote address, talked about how important our parks are to our quality of life.

“We see this commitment to creating safe, open spaces for the well-being of all in the work that we are doing at Magazine Beach,” she said. “This $2 million public-private investment will bring the Cambridge community closer to the Charles River with the installation of a new dock, observation deck, accessible pathways, benches and more. I know we can’t do this work without strong advocates like you. In just three months, I’ve come to see and deeply appreciate how partners like Mass Parks for All amplify our shared work.”

Suffice it to say we could not have accomplished any of this without all of you being in our corner. We are supremely grateful to each and every one of you who support us, who support your local parks, and support our vision for 21st century parks that serve millions of visitors each year and support our $16 billion annual outdoor recreation economy, the fastest growing in the country.

It’s not too late to make a contribution. The Solomon Foundation’s final challenge grant of 2025 will match every dollar given up to $25,000 until the end of the year. Please support MPA with any donation you can. The park you save may be your own.

MPA Joins Nature for Massachusetts Ballot Question Coalition

About a year ago, MPA joined a broad-based coalition behind a bill that would divert the sales tax on various sporting goods to a special fund that would be used to preserve land, protect water, improve parks, build trails, and support other outdoor recreation opportunities and assets. The bill, An Act Providing Nature for All, received a favorable report from the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources in July, and now sits awaiting review from the Joint Committee on Rules.

Meanwhile, some coalition members are moving forward with Protect Water and Nature Initiative, an initiative petition, or ballot question, to put the matter before the voters during the November 2026 general election. MPA is also part of this group.

Supporters estimate that the measure, whether passed by the Legislature or the voters, could generate up to $100 million a year for these causes without raising taxes.  

While the ballot measure has passed the legal muster to appear before the voters, the effort to get it in front of voters is an all hands on deck task primarily because supporters must gather some 75,000 registered voters’ signatures for presentation to municipal town and city clerks by Nov. 19.

This task is a heavy lift primarily because of the short period of time left to gather so many signatures. If you would like to help with this task, you can sign up to do so here. If you want more general information about the ballot question campaign, you can go here.

MPA is in this because our parks deserve a dedicated income stream to supplement what have admittedly been rising DCR budgets in recent years. But the short funding was so severe for so long, that reversing it will take a well-funded, concerted, long-term effort. Owing to DCR’s $1.0 billion deferred maintenance backlog, the Protect Water and Nature Initiative is a small but important piece of this effort. It will also contribute toward removing Massachusetts from the bottom of the national barrel when it comes to state per capita tax dollars spent on public open space.

Doug Pizzi is executive director of Mass Parks for All