Gateway Brown's Creek Trail Association was honored to be presented the Parks & Trails 2021 Friends Group Partner Award.

Last spring Parks & Trails Council partnered with several friends groups to help coordinate and fund habitat restoration events. This fall two of the groups--those supporting the Gateway State Trail in the east metro and Holly Skogen Park, which is a 2-acre park in the west-central Minnesota city of Starbuck, had volunteer labor days where they removed invasive buckthorn bushes and began the process of planting native plants.