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Friends of Memorial Park outline arboretum plan, report busy season and fundraising
Summary
Dave Funk and a volunteer leader from Friends of Memorial Park told the council the park hosted regional tournaments and festivals last year, raised rental and bench-sponsorship revenue, and aims to tag roughly 700–750 trees for an arboretum with an online species catalog; trustees covered remaining capital costs through fundraising and a county contribution.
Dave Funk, chairman of the Coleman Memorial Board, and Paige, president of the Friends group at the city’s Memorial Park, updated Lebanon City Council on park activity and planned capital work.
Funk said the county provided “30,000” and that the trustees “were able to make up the difference through our fundraising efforts.” He said the park’s rental fees and bench-sponsorship program generated roughly $42,000 last year. The presentation cited heavy athletic use — dozens of youth baseball games and regional tournaments drawing teams from Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, West Virginia, Ohio and Canada.
Paige described several community events the group runs and plans: five movie nights, three concerts, a Latino Fest that drew about 1,000 visitors, multiple pickleball tournaments and other seasonal programming. She said the group is pursuing capital improvements to the former mini-golf building so it can be used as a small community center for educational programs and rentals.
The largest capital initiative described was an arboretum project. Presenters said trees in the park will be physically tagged and linked to a website with species information; their stated goal is to tag roughly 700–750 trees and to identify “over 100 different species.” "We're hoping to identify over 100 different species," Paige said during the presentation.
Councilors asked for clarifications about grant eligibility and attendance counting. Funk and Paige described how trustees, grants and county support have been combined to fund projects and said they could provide rough attendance numbers by reviewing event records. The presentation closed with the council thanking the volunteers and presenters for the park work.
The council took no formal action on the presentation; the update was recorded as part of the community-update portion of the agenda.
