Communities need access to parks to be healthy. That’s what the research shows: parks are essential for thriving cities, happy people, and to our nation’s well-being as a whole.
Yet over 100 million Americans, including 28 million children, don’t have even a small park within a 10-minute walk from home, limiting their access to the outdoors.
Parks are essential and dynamic spaces. They are places that provide us opportunities to be healthy, happy, and resilient. They are also visible expressions of the type of world we want to live in and want to leave for future generations.
And in the face of worsening climate and public health crises, we need parks now more than ever.
Communities with less green spaces are hotter, have worse air quality, and are more susceptible to catastrophic flooding. The simple addition of plant-filled parks will improve quality of life. Trees alone prevent 1,200 heat-related deaths each year by combating urban heat zones.
The healing power of nature—and uninhibited access to the outdoors—should be a reality for everyone across America. That’s why TPL has identified 62 communities across the nation where our work is needed immediately. Your support today will help close the equity gap by creating parks for healthier, stronger, more equitable communities for over 9.6 million people!
But we must act today. If we don’t, the opportunity to employ nature-based solutions to the climate and health crisis before us will continue to shrink.
