YOUR FOUNDATION

Madison is blessed with more than 300 city parks, open spaces and conservation lands. Our park system is one of the quality of life factors that lands Madison on Most Livable Cities lists year after year. 

In truth, we owe it all to an extraordinary civic effort of ordinary Madisonians not so different from ourselves doing remarkable things. Three decades before Madison had a municipal parks department, public spaces were purchased, developed and maintained by the private citizen members of the Madison Parks & Pleasure Drive Association.  

These gifts created some of Madison's most popular and charming public spaces and established a citizen tradition of private support for public parks.

Today, that legacy and tradition are renewed by the Madison Parks Foundation.

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   (Video segment courtesy
   of Joel Despain & WISC-TV)