By Shelley Dekker
In August, the Foundation was thrilled to complete the restoration of the granite steps leading into The Trinity Park from W. Trinity Ave. Thanks to Sundial Landscaping for the fine work and to the TPNA, a Duke Doing Good grant, and individual donations for funding this project! Speaking of donors, we would like to thank Cavett and Barker French, Andy Stewart and Peggy Kinney, and Mr. and Mrs. Scott Taylor for recent donations to the Foundation. Andy and Peggy visited our website, trinityparkfoundation.org, and signed up to donate monthly through PayPal. They asked that their donation go toward helping purchase irrigation for the Trinity Park gardens, and this is exactly where it will go! Irrigation will be installed this fall or winter to relieve the Blossom Garden Club of this arduous task. We would also like to thank Julia Borbely-Brown for a large donation toward the restoration of the decorative brickwork in the right-of-way along W. Trinity Avenue near the park. There is a wooden bench here which we will look to restore as well.
In August Sue Concannon and I began identifying trees along what will be the Trinity Park Tree Trail, an urban hike celebrating the diversity of the trees within our neighborhood. We found over 30 species of trees in just a few blocks, including 5 different species of oaks on one block of Gloria Avenue alone!
Dale Pahl, Foundation vice-president, has been working on an overhaul of the Foundation’s website which will take place this winter. Dale has also spent a lot of time making digital copies of the Foundation’s legacy documents so that we will have not only the paper copies but also digital copies of our archives. This summer Jacqueline Morgan alerted me to the early history of the inception of the Trinity Park in the 1970s by Lelia Proctor, an architect and mother who moved in 1972 to 407 Watts St. across from the lot where the park is now, which had sat vacant for 20 years. It was Le’s idea to make a park, and she made it happen! I have been in touch with Le, who is looking for her original drawings and photographs from the time. We will post these documents on our website if they can be found.
A future project which needs funding is the addition of decorative steel edging along the perimeter of the park gardens in order to protect the plants from being trampled. We would also like to add handrails along the restored granite steps along the W. Trinity Ave. side of the park. You may donate to the Trinity Park Foundation online at our website, trinityparkfoundation.org, or by mailing a check to The Trinity Park Foundation, Inc., P.O. Box 725, Durham, NC 27702. Your donations go directly into funding projects that improve our neighborhood! Thank you for your support!
