New nonprofit will conserve green space in Zionsville

A nonprofit organization working to preserve and grow a parks system in Zionsville launched this week.

The first major conservation and restoration project for the Zionsville Parks Foundation will turn the former 216-acre Wolf Run Golf Club, now named the Carpenter Nature Preserve, into Boone County’s largest conservation park and a nature center.

Zionsville Parks Foundation founder board president Nancy Carpenter, said it is more important than ever to protect and develop green space.

“To have something like that at that end of town and also the connectivity with having two-thirds mile of Eagle Creek running through there and to be able to work on water quality is huge,” Carpenter said.

Zionsville Mayor Emily Styron said Zionsville is known as a little town within a park.

“The idea of having this park at the northern boundary of Zionsville and Starkey Park on the southern side, we really are starting to create a ring of nature around our community,”  Styron said.

The foundation will collaborate with the Town of Zionsville Parks Department, the park board, and the town council on various other projects, including scholarships for summer programs, and park and land acquisitions.

The town of Zionsville supported the foundation with a $3,900 community enrichment grant in September.