What Are You Asking the Fund to Provide?The trail council has worked for the past few years to identify new, younger volunteers. In 2021 the council recruited 4! new council members. We’ve also identified a new volunteer for routine mowing of nearly 10 miles of trail to replace the nearly 80 year old volunteer who has performed this task for years. This routine mowing is done about once per month and in the past has taken more than 6 hours each time. With a new volunteer coming on, the council wants to make this task as efficient as possible so we can retain him. Further, the old mower that had been used for routine mowing on this section of trail “died” while in service during the summer of 2022 (after having several resuscitations over the years).

Use of Funds/What Will Volunteers Do: WPT Council president identified a Challenger commercial grade zero turn 52” cut mower at Hildebrand’s in Indiana. It’s $4000 and 4 years old, gently used, has an easy to change belt and good tires, but the council intends to spend an additional $200 to have mower assessed and tuned up. The Trail Volunteer Funds would be used to purchase the mower and trail maintenance funds would pay for the tune up. The mower would be used exclusively by volunteers to mow the sections referenced above, averaging about 24 hours per year.