The Charleston Parks Conservancy

PARK RENOVATIONS:The Park Renovations Program aims to restore, re-establish, and create more climate-sustainable park spaces. With the increase in climate change and stormwater flooding, this program evaluates the needs of individual park challenges and creates mitigation strategies. Strategies can include renovation of plant material and horticultural displays, replacing or removing hardscape and non-permeable surfaces, and working with the City of Charleston Parks Department to optimize usage of the parks for the community. In 2024, we improved the parks at Tiedmann Nature Center, Wragg Square, and Corrine Jones. We identified Colonial Lake as our 2025 renovation and improvement project.GARDEN IN THE PARKS:Through the Garden in the Parks Program, the Conservancy provides routine care and maintenance for more than 20 public parks. Volunteers work alongside the Conservancy staff to care for and manage these park spaces. In 2024, volunteers provided over 6,800 hours of service to their community parks.GROW IT FORWARD: The Conservancy maintains 3 community gardens and provides opportunities for community members to lease garden plots (180 plots available) and have volunteer and educational opportunities through this program. The Conservancy also maintains 58 plots where staff grows organic produce that is then harvested and distributed to partner organizations for food access. In 2024, the Conservancy grew and distributed over 5,000lbs of produce. In 2024, we added a new project to this program with a half-acre food forest at Mulberry Pond Park in West Ashley.ART IN THE PARKS: The Conservancy uses an Art Master Plan, created in 2019, to guide the implementation of public art within the park spaces that we manage. These public artworks can be temporary or permanent and are meant to engage volunteers and community members on various disciplines of art, including visual arts, theater, vocal performance, and more. In 2024 the Conservancy implemented the installation of the first public sculpture artwork on the West Ashley Bikeway.EDUCATION: The Conservancy works to engage all ages of community members in educational components of horticulture and public park management. This includes bringing school children to the parks for field trips and lessons, doing educational outreach at schools, hosting and teaching workshop series about plants, wildlife, food access, and more. In 2024, we hosted educational courses on herbs, food preservation, pollinator habitats, honey bee production, urban tree canopy, bird watching, and much more.EVENTS: The Conservancy hosts a variety of events throughout the year, large and small scale, engaging nearly 8,000 community members annually. Our larger, signature events work to further our mission of connecting people to their parks and building community by gathering crowds in park spaces that we manage. The smaller events, like Music in the Parks, engage intimate neighborhood crowds to network and connect with each other in the park space.