A $50,000 gift will allow the Ottawa County Parks Commission to finish paving a trail in the Grand Ravines Park that will give handicapped users the opportunity to access the park's new suspension bridge from either direction and continue on a paved looped trail for nearly a mile.
The grant comes from Parks Commission member Ray Statema and his wife Alma Statema. The Statemas have previously donated easements and made grants to the Parks Commission to complete trails in Grand Ravines Park.
The Parks Commission earlier this year voted to build a $480,000 suspension bridge across the largest of the ravines in the park located in Georgetown Township and pave a trail to the bridge from the park's south parking lot. The bridge is expected to be completed later this summer.
The previously approved paving project would have allowed handicapped access to the bridge from the south but would have forced handicapped users who cannot travel on unpaved trails to return the way they came rather than going across the bridge.
The trail on the north side of the ravine currently is a dirt trail.
The new 0.3-mile-long paved trail will allow users to continue over the bridge and return via a paved loop to the park's south parking lot, a total distance of roughly 1 mile.
The new trail segment will cost an estimated $64,000 and will be completed at the same time the trail to the southern end of the bridge is paved this fall.