Celebrating 20 Years of Friendship

[TS_VCSC_Advanced_Textblock styling_color=”#000000″ styling_size=”18″ styling_border=”border-style:solid;border-top-style:solid;border-right-style:solid;border-bottom-style:solid;border-left-style:solid;|border-width:1px;border-radius:0px;border-top-width:0px;border-top-left-radius:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-top-right-radius:0px;border-bottom-width:0px;border-bottom-right-radius:0px;border-left-width:0px;border-bottom-left-radius:0px;|border-color:#cccccc;border-top-color:#cccccc;border-right-color:#cccccc;border-bottom-color:#cccccc;border-left-color:#cccccc;”]Happy 20th Anniversary to us!

Today we celebrate the 20th birthday of the Friends of Garfield Park! It was the vision of P.E. MacAllister to invest in Garfield Park back in the mid 1990’s through a Indy Parks Foundation program Partners in Parks.

From that charge, a small group of local leaders including George Seybert, Betty Foley, Lynda Burrello, Mark Van Auken, Ken Boyce, Andy Hohlt and me all began meeting in 1997 to look at ways to support the park and build a $1m endowment. After several months of somewhat productive meetings George said “hey… what are we gonna do here? …. let’s get something going!”

And it was at that moment in the front bar of the Fireside South Restaurant we formed the Friends of Garfield Park. What a ride it has been since that day 2 decades ago. We have raised over $4.5m for our great Park and have invested in programs, projects and people to have a lasting impact for years to come.

Thanks to all of our “friends” for your support over the years!

Here’s to the next great 20!!

~Mark Bowell, Executive Director FOGP[/TS_VCSC_Advanced_Textblock]