The City of Redding Community Services Department is pleased to announce the completed purchase of Magnolia Park, Redding’s oldest play space.
This purchase honors the hard work by residents of the surrounding neighborhood who started a grassroots campaign to preserve the park, set up a website, attended numerous public meetings and gathered nearly 800 signatures of support online. Their efforts, combined with a partnership between the Shasta County Office of Education (SCOE) and the City of Redding helped to complete the purchase of Magnolia Park, adding 1.85 acres to Redding’s parkland inventory and preserving access to public play spaces in an area without other parks. By obtaining an $88,000 matching grant from the Housing Related Parks Program allocating funds from the City’s Park Fund, Magnolia Park was purchased and is now officially a City of Redding park serving the neighborhood and community’s families in perpetuity. Mayor Kristen Schreder, who was active in the effort to preserve the park notes, “Neighborhood play spaces are an integral part of healthy childhoods and community. Saving Magnolia Park was a gratifying outcome of the collective good will of residents, schools and the City working together.”
To capitalize on this new lease on life, the City’s Community Services Department applied for and was awarded grant funding for park improvements through the Walt Disney Company and the National Recreation and Parks Association’s “Meet Me at the Park Play Spaces Program.” This grant will fund an expanded basketball court, new hoops, and resurfacing with new hardcourt games dispersed throughout. With City ownership, strong neighborhood support, and a new lease on life, the near end was just the beginning for this treasured play space.
