Environment Archives | Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation

39 acres at Grand Forest East saved, with major gift through Parks & Trails Foundation

39 acres at Grand Forest East saved, with major gift through Parks & Trails Foundation

Thirty-nine acres of Grand Forest East will be preserved for public use, after a successful $2.2 million fundraising effort by the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation and Bainbridge Island Land Trust.

The property will be purchased by the Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District, under an agreement with the Bainbridge Island School District. The 39-acre parcel has been managed as part of the Grand Forest parkland for more than 30 years, while it was owned by the School District as a possible school site. The School District surplussed the property for sale earlier this year.

The preservation effort was anchored by a $1.6 million gift from a private conservation fund established by an island family, made through the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation.

Hundreds of individual donors gave separately through the Bainbridge Island Land Trust and Parks & Trails Foundation, through […]

39 acres at Grand Forest East saved, with major gift through Parks & Trails FoundationDouglas2025-05-28T14:42:39-07:00

Student Conservation Corps hiring for Summer 2025

Student Conservation Corps hiring for Summer 2025

Bainbridge Island high schoolers: Bainbridge Metro Parks’ Student Conservation Corps is hiring for summer 2025.

Positions available include Assistant Leader, Crew, and Peer Mentors! Check out the SCoCo program home page for the most up to date information, follow links to open positions and job descriptions, and prepare for a summer with SCoCo.

The Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation is proud to support SCoCo, an innovative work-learn, education and leadership program. SCoCo offers vigorous, meaningful summer employment and skill building for high schoolers, providing critical care for public parks and trails while cultivating the next generation of environmental stewards. Your gifts to the Foundation help make it possible.

APPLY TO SCOCO

Student Conservation Corps hiring for Summer 2025Douglas2025-03-28T13:26:01-07:00

Nature Counts! Bainbridge Island Environmental Conference, April 13

Nature Counts! Bainbridge Island Environmental Conference, April 13

Nature Counts!, a preparation for the City Nature Challenge, is the subject of the 2025 Environmental Conference, 1-4 p.m. Sunday, April 13, at IslandWood.

Register today at https://www.sustainablebainbridge.org/programs/biec/

This year’s Environmental Conference is a celebration of community science that engages, informs, and helps our community prepare for the upcoming City Nature Challenge (April 25-28). Connect with organizations dedicated to conservation, education and stewardship, and learn tools, techniques and scientific methods that will support your involvement with community science projects in our area.

Megan Rohrssen of the Bainbridge Island Land Trust and Christina Woolf from IslandWood will present local projects that rely on community engagement to identify and monitor our natural ecosystems and resources. We will celebrate the community activism of a local couple receiving this year’s Environmentalist of the Year award, a […]

Nature Counts! Bainbridge Island Environmental Conference, April 13Douglas2025-03-18T17:39:08-07:00

Celebrate Earth Month in April

Celebrate Earth Month in April

April is Celebrate Trees! Earth Month on Bainbridge Island

April is Earth Month on Bainbridge Island 2025! Celebrate with activities and events for all ages for Earth Day and Arbor Day during the entire month of April and beyond.

Sustainable Bainbridge, in partnership with many Bainbridge Island nonprofits, is hosting an incredible variety of opportunities, including weed pulls and work parties, Earth Day celebrations, free invasive weed disposal, and nature talks and walks.

Earth Month events include the Bainbridge Island Environmental Conference, “Nature Counts! Community Science on Bainbridge and Preparing for the City Nature Challenge” (April 13 at IslandWood), and the community Earth Expo (April 26 at Battle Point Park).

Learn more at https://www.sustainablebainbridge.org/programs/earth-month. Take action every day as an individual, a family, or a group with our […]

Celebrate Earth Month in AprilDouglas2025-03-14T08:36:01-07:00

Foundation, Land Trust launch campaign to preserve Grand Forest East

Foundation, Land Trust launch campaign to preserve Grand Forest East

The Bainbridge Island Land Trust with the support of the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation have launched a campaign to raise funds to protect 39 acres at Grand Forest East, allowing purchase by the Bainbridge Island Metro Park & Recreation District.

The Park District on February 21, 2025, announced its intent to purchase the property, contingent on a successful fundraising campaign. With negotiations now underway, the fundraising campaign, Stand for the Grand Forest, is expected to be over $2 million, said Cullen Brady, Executive Director, Bainbridge Island Land Trust.

The Board of the Bainbridge Island School District voted to surplus the 39-acre property.

“This is an urgent campaign,” Brady said. “The School District’s January 9, 2025, action to surplus and sell this property, among their first order of business in the new year, started the clock ticking. We need the community to […]

Foundation, Land Trust launch campaign to preserve Grand Forest EastDouglas2025-03-24T14:49:25-07:00

Big numbers for MLK Day of Service at Blakely Harbor Park

Big numbers for MLK Day of Service at Blakely Harbor Park

A volunteer force 230 strong made it “A Day On, Not A Day Off” at the annual MLK Jr. Day of Service at Blakely Harbor Park, Jan. 20.

It was the largest-ever turnout for the annual stewardship day at the park.

How about these impressive numbers across the board:

Blackberry, ivy and other invasive weeds (25 yards) tugged and hauled off to TILZ for composting. New native shrubs and trees (400 total) put into the winter soil, blanketed by yards and yards (50) of fresh mulch. Trash (10 gallons) picked up from nearby roadsides. Even pinecone bird feeders (dozens) crafted by small hands, to support our avian neighbors.

Here’s another great number: $200,000 – that’s the funding granted by the Parks & Trails Foundation to support Blakely Harbor Park restoration since 2014.

That number is multiplied many times over by the outstanding work […]

Big numbers for MLK Day of Service at Blakely Harbor ParkDouglas2025-02-16T14:16:21-08:00

Foundation, Land Trust to work with community to preserve 39 acres at Grand Forest East

Foundation, Land Trust to work with community to preserve 39 acres at Grand Forest East

The Bainbridge Island Land Trust and the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation acknowledge the recent announcement by the Bainbridge Island School District (BISD) that it plans to surplus its 39-acre property that functions as part of Grand Forest East parkland.

The Grand Forest nature complex is a treasured Bainbridge Island landscape, known for its interconnected trail network, intact forest core and vital natural habitats.

Recognizing the conservation and recreational value of this land, our organizations are united in our commitment to protect it permanently, ensuring that it remains undeveloped and accessible to the community for future generations.

On January 9, the School Board voted to surplus the 39-acre parcel. The Land Trust and Parks & Trails Foundation will work closely with the Bainbridge Island community, local leaders, and other stakeholders as we explore ways to safeguard this valuable resource.

We encourage everyone to join us in helping to conserve one of the Island’s […]

Foundation, Land Trust to work with community to preserve 39 acres at Grand Forest EastDouglas2025-02-21T08:13:26-08:00

Join us for the MLK Day of Service, Jan. 20

Join us for the MLK Day of Service, Jan. 20

Join Bainbridge Island Metro Parks, the Bainbridge Island Parks & Trails Foundation and supporting partners for the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Monday, Jan. 20 at Blakely Harbor Park.

Conservation projects for all ages are planned: planting native wildflowers, mulching young plants, and removing invasive species like ivy, spurge laurel, and blackberry. Park District and Parks & Trails Foundation staff and volunteers will be on hand to share knowledge about the park and its restoration. All tools are provided.

Sign up to volunteer as an individual, family, team or club. […]

Join us for the MLK Day of Service, Jan. 20Douglas2025-01-08T10:04:30-08:00

A warm December welcome for 8 Acre Woods

A warm December welcome for 8 Acre Woods

Befitting a park with trailheads on three sides, everyone seemed to come to 8 Acre Woods from a different direction, metaphorically speaking.

Andrew Schmid grew up on nearby Manitou Park Boulevard and knew the Skiff Point parcel as all woods and no trails, too dense and impenetrable even for rowdy kids on BMX bikes.

Those more recently familiar with the land knew it precisely for trails, built with intention over the years by the property owner who invited all to walk and share the land.

Then there’s Jim Kondek. He’s lived on neighboring Falk Road for almost 40 years and reckons he’s walked every mile of Bainbridge Island trails, but had somehow never crossed the green threshold into what would become known as 8 Acre Woods.

“I knew it was here and was a good-sized parcel, but I had no idea there […]

A warm December welcome for 8 Acre WoodsDouglas2025-01-13T13:34:21-08:00

Gift of fir, pine highlight Moritani restoration

Gift of fir, pine highlight Moritani restoration

Len Eisenhood has enjoyed Moritani Preserve since its opening, often walking the park’s winding paths with friends to slow down and chat and enjoy the wildlife. A landscape painter, the resident of nearby Grow Community has also captured the preserve’s quiet scenes and settings as part of an art-centric healing journey.

“In walks, I’ve seen pileated woodpeckers,” he recalls with a painter’s eye, “that red shock among all the green, you can’t miss it.”

Eisenhood used proceeds from the sale of his artworks to fund the gift of two new trees, a Grand fir and a Shore Pine, to the Preserve. Gifted through the Parks & Trails Foundation, the trees were installed this week during a year-end restoration event with Bainbridge Metro Parks staff and volunteers.

The trees commemorate the lives of a neighbor and a college friend whom Eisenhood recently […]

Gift of fir, pine highlight Moritani restorationDouglas2024-12-16T16:02:57-08:00