Friends of the Parks

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Letter From The Ride Director Friends of the Park’s L.A.T.E. Ride is a fantastic event for our great city, and it helps raise significant funds for Friends of the Parks’ vital work. Totaling more than 130,000 participants since 1989, our ride is heralded as one of the nation’s largest recreational bike rides. Many people consider the experience a top highlight of their summer year after year. As you know, parks benefit our city in so many ways. They serve us, they inspire us, and they bring us together. Parks provide young people with safe and healthy places to play, contribute to public health and build stronger communities. We are all children when it comes to parks, for we never outgrow our need for green space and fun, for friends and laughter, for nature and beauty. Friends of the Parks wants every citizen of Chicago, as well as our millions of visitors, to have easy access to safe, clean, beautiful parks with vibrant programs that serve and inspire us. I’m a native Chicagoan and, probably like you, have spent much time in our parks. When I was a child, my family lived close to Jackson Park on the south side. Mine were the days of daring metal slides without guard rails, merry-go-rounds spinning fast enough to bring butterflies to our stomachs, silver monkey bars and bouncing wooden see-saws. I couldn’t get enough of playing in the park when I was a kid! My husband and I have two young daughters and the parks mean so much to our family. Parks provide a respite from the stresses of daily life. They give all of us, no matter our age, places to play, to relax, to be active and stay fit. Every warm summer day I hear my older daughter say, “Mommy, mommy, let’s go to the park” and I feel proud that I work for an organization that does so much to keep our city green. Our L.A.T.E. Ride participants tell me they're pleased that rider fees support the work of Friends of the Parks, Chicago's only citywide parks advocacy group. Established in 1975, Friends of the Parks' mission focuses on protecting and improving Chicago's parks and the forest preserves in Cook County. We host the Midwest's largest Earth Day clean-up, many park "greening" projects through our Adopt-a-Park program and Community Service Days, park tours and lectures, and our annual Parks Ball event. Learn more about us at www.fotp.org. Your support will help Friends of the Parks accomplish these goals in 2010: develop a new children's playground in Grand Crossing Park, located in one of Chicago's neediest communities create a plan to develop 500 acres of new lakefront parks expand our exciting new tree-planting program If you're not already a member of Friends of the Parks, we hope you will join us! You'll receive our newsletter, invitations to events and activities throughout the year, and opportunities to meet new people. Thank you for your support! As I look back on the success of our 2009 ride, I have to laugh when I think of its humble beginnings in 1989. With a $250 gift certificate from a local grocer, I purchased muffins and orange juice for our post-ride breakfast. I convinced only three volunteers to stay up all night with me: my mom, my dad and my friend Katherine. We sat at my parents' card table with a lantern, a cash box and a few pens to register a whopping 350 riders at Buckingham Fountain. A Friends of the Parks' board member drove his station wagon with wooden panels on the sides - our first official repair vehicle! - along the 25-mile route (which included lower Wacker Drive that first year). A reporter from The Chicago Tribune observed the proceedings and called it "one of the more biorhythmically disturbing fundraisers every mapped out". We were on the map!! Since 1989, our ride has grown by leaps and bounds. We still rely on volunteers to stay up all night, but in 2009 recruited more than 350 volunteers to serve 8,500 riders! The ride would not have become so successful without the generous support of our sponsors, who donate more than a quarter-million dollars worth of food and beverages, equipment and services, trucks and vans, medical assistance, bicycle repair, printing and broadcast/print promotion. Organizing The L.A.T.E. Ride isn't the only thing I do at Friends of the Parks, but it's the most fun. I love working with the volunteer planning committee. Each year, we begin our monthly meetings in the fall to organize the next year's event! We plan the route, produce the brochure and rider guide, select the t-shirt design, solicit sponsors, obtain donated food and beverages, work with our media sponsors on promotions, meet with police, staff the packet pick-ups, and recruit more volunteers for the ride. About three weeks before the ride, dozens of volunteers meet in a warehouse for five nights to assemble 8,500 rider goody bags. The day and night of the ride over 200 volunteers help deliver equipment and unload three semi-trailer trucks worth of supplies, register riders, distribute food and drinks at the rest stop and at breakfast, patrol the route to guide and help riders, clean up and attend to a gazillion other details. The dedication of all these volunteers brings a warm feeling to my heart. Planning and running an all-nighter for thousands of people bonds us together. I'm proud that this event is virtually all volunteer-run, and I thank everyone who has helped. On behalf of Friends of the Parks, I thank our riders, volunteers, sponsors and in-kind donors for making this event possible! Nancy Minster Swabb Ride Director, The L.A.T.E. Ride Communications and Events Director, Friends of the Parks