St. Charles Park District Awarded Two Grants Totaling $10,000

Kane County’s Creating Healthier Communities program recently awarded two grants totaling $10,000 to the St. Charles Park District.

The Creating Healthier Communities program is intended to provide funds to implement the Kane County 2040 Plan focusing on six of the plan’s high priority health, land use and transportation policy recommendations, according to a release from the St. Charles Park District. Widespread implementation of the six policies is expected to have positive, measurable population health impact, decrease chronic disease burden and reduce health disparities in Kane County.

The park district intends to use $5,000 of the grant money for the engineering services required to bring water to the future garden plots at River Bend Community Park, located off Courier and Geneva avenues. The goal is to to increase the consumption of fresh produce and the physical activity of gardening in the community, the release states.

The district will spend the remaining $5,000 as part of a new Fit and Free program for St. Charles. The funds will be used to install GIS/map interior walking trails at , River Bend Community Park and , the release states. This project includes improved trail map design for kiosks, website enhancements for tracking individual progress and QR code development for downloading maps and tracking mileage.

The district describes the grants as matching grants, and the district contribution will be in the form of in-kind labor, not cash. The grants require the professional services be completed and invoiced by Dec. 31, 2012.

Follow St. Charles Patch by "liking" our Facebook page and following us on Twitter at @StCharlsILPatch.

You also can subscribe to have the St. Charles Patch newsletter delivered to your inbox.