The UW–Platteville Foundation Inc. is supporting efforts to enhance the city of Platteville and encourage outdoor recreation.

An anonymous donation to the Foundation is being used to give a $50,000 cash gift, in addition to a $50,000 gift-in-kind, to the Platteville Community Arboretum in support of its Moving Platteville Outdoors project.

“The UW–Platteville Foundation believes it is important to support the Platteville Community Arboretum’s Moving Platteville Outdoors project because so many students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends are a part of the Platteville community and will benefit,” said Mark Taber, chair of the UW–Platteville Foundation board of directors. “We are thankful to the anonymous donor who chose to support this project and agree with the belief that this project will have a positive impact on the city, university and surrounding area.”

The goals of the Moving Platteville Outdoors project include promoting a healthy, active lifestyle in the Platteville community, which the PCA hopes to achieve with enhancements — including paving and lighting -– to the Rountree Branch Recreational Trail. The trail currently connects with UW–Platteville’s Memorial Park trail, providing a continuous path from the university to Business 151 all the way along the stream to the starting point of the future Platteville-to-Belmont trail behind Menard’s.

“We are very excited about this gift and what this means for enriching this area,” said Dennis Cooley, assistant chancellor for University Advancement and executive director of the UW–Platteville Foundation. “This will benefit not only the community but also our students who are increasingly turning to bikes, walking and other alternatives to bringing cars on campus. This is an example of the great ways the community and university can work together to enhance the city.”

In addition to benefiting UW–Platteville students by providing better access to the commercial and residential area on the northeast side of Platteville, the Foundation’s gift-in-kind also provides many high-impact practices for students. The partnership has allowed students across several programs to be involved in aspects of the trail design and management.

“Since PCA’s inception, UW–Platteville has played a significant role in our board leadership group,” said Gene Weber, PCA board member. “The UW–Platteville reclamation program leadership and talented student reclamation professionals have done an outstanding job assisting us with physical help and guidance on native plants, burns and other environmental opportunities. The ag structures program has designed and built our PCA storage shed. The civil and environmental engineering senior design classes have done multiple trail enhancement designs for PCA. It has been a great partnership and continues to be.”

“The UW–Platteville Foundation has surpassed our greatest hopes with its contributions,” said Robin Fatzinger, PCA president. “What a great community collaboration to see the UW–Platteville Foundation joining the city, Building Platteville, Platteville Community Fund and our Platteville Community Arboretum in playing major fundraising leadership roles to help drive a successful Moving Platteville Outdoors effort to enhance the Rountree Branch Recreational Trail, including lighting and paving. Discussions about leading fundraising efforts are ongoing with many other service and community organizations. This is a big project that will benefit our entire community so lots of helping hands are needed.”