“We had a walking trail that kind of just…ended,” Stacey Hamm of the Wichita [Kansas] Parks and Recreation Community Fund (WPRCF), says of her city’s popular Buffalo Park. And unfortunately, the spot where it ended afforded no easy, direct path back to the active area of the park.

Buffalo Park sits on the northwest side of Wichita, facing the main thoroughfare of a well-established older neighborhood. The park, home to a bustling playground and surrounded by schools, is a community hub. And many of its visitors gravitate to the walking trail for quiet and exercise. When the city began looking at adding a spray park and other amenities, the time was right to extend and connect the walking trail. “It was just perfect timing with what we had planned to do with this park,” Hamm says.

Wichita was awarded a Great American Trails grant through the Darden Foundation. And the grant went much further than creating that needed extension and connection between the park’s north parking lot and the main road. With the five-foot-wide trail addition installed, the WPRCF found there were still enough monies left to enhance rest areas
with new benches and new trees.

The Buffalo Falls Park trail project offers a reminder, Hamm says, that completing a loop and adding simple amenities are sometimes all that is necessary to transform a community’s perception and use of a trail. She adds that in Wichita, walking trails are the most requested enhancement from park users.

“The neighborhood really likes it,” Hamm reports, “because now, instead of just walking in a grassy area it gave them more of a wider flat surface to walk their pets on or to ride their bikes on. Or even just to walk along. [Park users] loved the benches too, because they could sit and watch the kids play without having to bring lawn chairs. So that was a great new addition that they were very thankful for.”

What is more, the local high school cross-country and track teams have embraced the newly connected trail. The loop takes the runners through wooded areas and past a fishing pond, providing a perfect setting for practices just a short walk (or run) from the high school.

Wichita parks—and families—continue to benefit from the partnership that has formed between the two LongHorn Steakhouse restaurants and the city’s parks. “Hamm says the parks offer multiple opportunities for the restaurant staffs to get involved.”