For several years, I’ve had the honor of working with a great nonprofit, the Charleston Parks Conservancy. Its mission is simple: to connect people to their parks. It’s an easy mission when people truly love their local parks. Since its founding almost a decade ago, the Conservancy has renovated several Charleston city parks in a partnership with the City of Charleston and with the support of volunteers, private donors and neighborhood groups interested in seeing their parks and playgrounds brought to a new level.

In my early days with the Conservancy, there was talk of renovating Colonial Lake, a well-known and historic space on the Charleston peninsula. The park was a large lake bordered by a small sidewalk. There were a few trees and benches sprinkled throughout. The park was well used and lovely but it had the potential for so much more.

After years of planning and meetings and months of fundraising, construction began in January 2015. About 2 months ago, the construction was nearing completion and the Conservancy gathered scores of volunteers to aid in putting 20,000 plants, trees and shrubs into the garden beds around the lake. Today we gathered for a media breakfast, inviting local reporters to learn more about the project, the volunteers and the people behind the scenes that made all this happen.

Stop by Colonial Lake soon and see what’s been done. There’s a grand reopening celebration and ribbon cutting from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, June 4, with music, food trucks, activities for the kids and much more.

I had a great time organizing the media event: