The Dallas County Conservation Foundation, which is largely in charge of the “Let’s Connect” project, recently received a large boon from the Wellmark Foundation.

It was recently announced that Wellmark approved a $90,000 Large Matching Assets to Community Health (MATCH) Grant for phase one of the project to connect the Raccoon River Valley Trail in Perry with the High Trestle Trail in Woodward. Forest Park Museum Curator Pete Malmberg explains, the $90,000 in funds must be matched by September 18 of this year before they will hand over the funds. He adds, the grant will go a long way towards the estimated phase one project cost, which is $556,000.

“This is pretty significant. The pressure’s on now, to do a lot of matching things. There’s always a lot of pressure to achieve certain matches and get out and talk to donors and stuff. So there’ll be a lot of that going on in the next couple months. The total connector pledge amount right now is a total of $60,000, so doing well, but we’ve got a ways to go. So we’re pretty excited right now.”

In addition to the MATCH Grant, Dallas County Conservation also recently found out the project had received $10,000 from Bob and Jane Sturgeon, which was donated through the Dallas County Foundation. Malmberg says they hope phase one of the “Let’s Connect” project will be completed some time in 2018.

To hear more about this and other conservation topics, listen to Tuesday’s Perry Fareway Let’s Talk Dallas County program at RaccoonValleyRadio.com.