Ohio BRINGING THE OUTDOORS CLOSER TO HOME IN 2026 AND BEYOND
PHOTO BY MCKINLEY WILEY
Connecting Everyone to the Outdoors in Ohio Access to nature isn’t a luxury; it’s essential. You make it possible for Trust for Public Land to protect and create community-centered outdoor spaces that improve health and wellness, increase climate resilience, and bolster social connections. You help TPL advance this important work through on-the-ground project delivery and comprehensive systems change, in Ohio and across the country. In the last year, we officially opened our first community schoolyard at Caledonia in East Cleveland and finalized design concepts for a second schoolyard at Jennings Community Learning Center to bring quality outdoor space to students and residents in Akron. We leveraged local partnerships to expand our Pocket Forest Initiative and grow phytoremediation efforts into a neighborhood impacted by historic redlining and environmental contamination. We were honored as the Community Spark recipient by the Nature Center at Shaker Lake and began working alongside Appalachian communities to expand outdoor recreation opportunities through our Appalachian United Outdoors program. Each effort reflects our shared commitment to support both people and the places that matter most to them.
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As we celebrate all we have accomplished, there is more work to be done. The need for equitable access to nature continues to grow, and so do the challenges and opportunities facing our health, climate, and communities. With your continued support, we can rise to meet this moment. Thank you for joining us as we connect everyone to the outdoors. With gratitude, Sean Terry Associate Vice President Ohio State Director
Why TPL Our 50+ years of experience across the country have shown us first-hand how well-designed outdoor spaces are more than places to play; they change people’s lives. Access to the outdoors improves public health, creates economic opportunities, and strengthens our neighborhoods’ social fabric, which is why TPL’s work is so important. Our unique approach allows us to deliver highly specialized results tailored to the needs and creative visions of local neighborhoods. TPL leverages longstanding partnerships with government agencies, nonprofits, funders, and our communities to invest in the people of Ohio. By applying our national expertise informed by these partnerships, we deliver community-centric solutions in areas that need welcoming green spaces the most. We inspire systemic change through thought leadership, evidence-based strategies, research, and tools informed by our national network of area experts. TPL’s range of expertise and services position us to swiftly and adeptly meet the conservation needs of the moment. We augment local experience with national knowledge. That is the benefit of working with TPL: when you partner with TPL in Ohio, you gain access to our in-house experts in community equity, health, climate, public policy, finance, research, evaluation, mapping, and placemaking.
A Community Spark Our impact in Ohio has not gone unnoticed. This year, TPL was honored to receive the Nature Center at Shaker Lake (NCSL)’s Community Spark Award for our collaboration on TPL’s Building Common Ground toolkit. The award celebrates lasting partnerships and action-based advocacy work, recognizing nonprofits that make a positive environmental impact and share the Nature Center’s mission to connect people with nature and inspire environmental stewards. TPL’s Building Common Ground toolkit is a practical guide providing park planners, city officials, and residents with over 50 actionable strategies for inclusive park design, active programming, and collaborative stewardship. Informed by feedback from more than 70 park practitioners across 20 cities, the toolkit translates research into actionable steps you can use in your day-to-day work and offers a research-based approach to strengthening parks as essential places that foster connection and neighborhood vitality. In Ohio, NCSL was a key stakeholder during our Community Strategies refinement phase, which included a soft rollout and interaction with the toolkit in Cleveland in January 2026. Explore the toolkit and start building stronger connections in your parks and communities today at tpl.org.
PHOTO BY MCKINLEY WILEY
TRUST FOR PUBLIC L AND IN OHIO
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Ohio Community Schoolyards Every child deserves access to safe, welcoming outdoor spaces that support learning, health, and well-being. Yet many students attend schools with little access to nature, quality play spaces, or nearby parks. These disparities are especially pronounced in communities that have historically received less investment in public infrastructure and green space. With your support, TPL is transforming outdated and overlooked schoolyards across the country into meaningful community spaces designed by and for students, teachers, and the surrounding neighborhood. TPL and East Cleveland City School District celebrated the grand opening of Ohio’s first community schoolyard at Caledonia Elementary School last fall. The school’s previously uninspired asphalt schoolyard now features basketball hoops, a climbing wall, an outdoor classroom, new play equipment, a nature-based play area, expanded garden beds, and a walking path. Open to the community on weekends and outside of school hours, this transformed schoolyard provides quality park space for nearly 2,700 residents within a 10-minute walk. Our partnership with communities does not end when a schoolyard transformation is complete. Once the schoolyard opens, TPL supports the school and surrounding community in envisioning the daily life and use of their new space. This spring, TPL and local partners joined Caledonia Elementary’s Earth Day
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celebration at their new community schoolyard. Students, families, and residents enjoyed snacks, giveaways, and provided feedback on a design for an environmental restoration plan the cities of East Cleveland and Cleveland Heights are creating for a ravine adjacent to the school. Caledonia’s revitalized schoolyard is just the beginning. Over the last year, we have been deepening our community engagement and strengthening partnerships with school districts across Ohio, including Akron Public Schools, Garfield Heights City Schools, and Cleveland Metropolitan School District, to expand this model and bring close-to-home park space to families across the state.
ABOVE: Carla Chapman, Chief of Community Relations and Strategic Engagement at Akron Public Schools (APS), announcing partnership between TPL and APS at Caledonia Groundbreaking. PHOTO BY TIMOTHY FITZWATER ; BELOW: Caledonia Students. PHOTO BY MCKINLEY WILEY
Growing the Movement We are proud to be growing our community schoolyards efforts in Ohio through a partnership with Akron Public Schools. Utilizing TPL’s National Community Schoolyards Prioritization Tool, we are identifying neighborhoods that will benefit most from reimagined park space and drawing a roadmap for future community schoolyards to ensure students have access to the spaces they need to thrive. Akron’s North Hill neighborhood is known as the “International District”, featuring a rich tapestry of culture, language, and a deep-rooted history as an entry point for immigrants and refugees. Anchored within this neighborhood is Jennings Community Learning Center, a Title 1 school where students speak over nine different languages. Their current outdoor space— known as “The Bowl”—is an underutilized grassy patch teeming with potential. TPL is transforming this space into a vibrant, publicly accessible community schoolyard. This new green space will provide opportunities for outdoor learning and play while serving as a community park with amenities that benefit both students and over 6,000 residents living within half a mile. Throughout the participatory design process, students provided input on design elements and explored green infrastructure strategies that can reduce extreme heat, manage stormwater, and improve environmental conditions for the site and surrounding neighborhood.
They put their whole heart and their whole soul into this project. This space is going to be a legacy for our school, our team, our students—it’s going to be a permanent reminder of our dedication, our passion, and our love for our community.” — Lashawna Grimes, Jennings CLC Assistant Principal
Jennings CLC Community Schoolyard Design Unveiling, PHOTO BY RAMONE HARDY/RNH PRODUCTIONS
TPL held a celebration in May for the culmination of our participatory design phase. During the design unveiling, student leaders from the 7th grade Student Design Team shared their favorite aspects of the new Bowl design and how their feedback contributed to the final product. Each team shared their final individual designs, which were created over months of classroom workshops and directly informed the priorities of the final concept design. The final schoolyard design features a mural wall, a soccer pitch with bleachers, gathering spaces, and a walking path.
A New Gathering Space In July, we brought residents together for a World Cup Watch Party at the school. In partnership with North Hill CDC, Cleveland Soccer Group Foundation, and Rubber City Underground (the local booster club for Akron City Football Club), community members came together to share food, music, and input on the new design—including the new soccer pitch—while watching the World Cup. The event highlighted North Hill’s vibrantly diverse neighborhood and demonstrated the power of shared spaces to foster meaningful connection. TRUST FOR PUBLIC L AND IN OHIO
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From Boom to Bloom Take a walk through downtown Cleveland, and you are immediately reminded of the city’s former reputation as an industrial powerhouse. Like many great industrial centers, Cleveland’s manufacturing decline in the 1960s led to societal fragmentation and disinvestment in communal infrastructure like park space.
Tait brought us together from across the city and both sides of the river. That’s no small thing in a city as segregated and fragmented as Cleveland.”
Today, the city is experiencing something of a parks renaissance, boasting a new 15-year parks master plan with a strong emphasis on outdoor equity. TPL is leading the Cleveland Parks and Greenspace Coalition to bridge the city’s residents with the reconstituted parks department and ensure quality park space is accessible in every neighborhood. Our senior program coordinator, Tait Ferguson, is the coalition’s point person, organizing park forums connecting residents across three dozen neighborhoods while working directly with the parks department to strengthen relations with community-led groups.
— Ronaldo Rodriguez, Jr., Community Activist and Tremont Garden Club member
Restoration Taking Root Following Cleveland’s industrial decline, abandoned homes were torn down and lots were often left with lead contamination, a result of the lead-based paint once commonly used in buildings. Today, an estimated 30,000 vacant lots pose a plain-sight solution to the growing need for park space. In Southeast Cleveland’s Slavic Village, once-vacant parcels of land now boast rows of tulip poplars stretching toward the sky. Beneath the surface, their roots are doing quiet but powerful work; drawing pollutants from the soil through a natural process called phytoremediation. TPL planted the poplars last year and is stewarding the trees in partnership with Slavic Village Development. This effort is part of our Pocket Forest initiative, which is transforming underused urban lots into dense, biodiverse native forests that maximize environmental and community benefits. Our Ohio team is collaborating with local nonprofits and scientists at Ohio State University (OSU) to improve soil quality and increase park space in neighborhoods disproportionately affected by environmental contamination. 6 |
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This year, we kicked off a new tree planting project with Food Strong, a nonprofit dedicated to sustainable local food systems and environmental justice, at their urban farm. With the support of a 2026-2027 Cleveland Tree Coalition grant, TPL, Food Strong, and OSU Extension will explore remediation efforts in the St. Clair-Superior neighborhood. Here, we are employing a new lead remediation technique called soil capping using a research-based soil blend that binds lead and maintains fertile soil. TPL will be evaluating how the new soil interacts with common community garden plants along with fruit, nut, and shade trees while our climate mapping workshops will guide tree placement based on resident priorities and heat vulnerability. DONATE TODAY. Your support is restoring ecosystems block by block, creating cleaner soil today and stronger neighborhoods for generations to come.
Poplar tree planting in Slavic Village Development. PHOTO BY DANIEL LOZ ADA
LOOKING FORWARD:
Appalachia United Outdoors
ABOVE: PHOTO BY IAN MACLELL AN; INSET: Eva Miller. COURTESY OF EVA MILLER
A Word from TPL Summer Intern, Eva Miller: This summer, I had the privilege of interning with TPL’s Ohio field office through the Cleveland Foundation Summer Internship Program. During my internship, I helped plan community engagement events, develop educational workshops around the Cleveland Climate Smart Cities mapping tool, reconnect with partners involved in legacy land protection projects, and capture the stories of residents working to improve their local parks and greenspaces. I also expanded the Climate Smart Cities tool by developing a community asset layer, which highlights the organizations, institutions, and community resources that can be leveraged to support climate resilience and resident-led, nature-based solutions. As a student at Ohio University, I have become deeply connected to both the people and the hills of the Appalachian Region. Through my experiences, I have learned the importance of asset-based community development in highlighting community strengths and providing opportunities for local knowledge to lead and shape local solutions.
AUO: Connecting Ohio Communities and Outdoor Recreation Economies TPL’s Appalachia United Outdoors (AUO) program is building a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient future for rural communities by leveraging one of the region’s greatest assets: the outdoors. Across Appalachia, outdoor recreation is a powerful engine for economic growth, public health, and climate resilience, but opportunity is not always easily accessible in these remote areas. While the region is rich in natural beauty and cultural history, many of its communities face economic barriers, shifting job markets, limited access to healthcare, and climate risks. TPL Ohio is working alongside 32 Appalachian communities to unlock the potential of these outdoor spaces and turn them into opportunities for growth. This community-centered strategy helps rural communities tap into the $1.1 trillion outdoor recreation economy. We are teaming up with federal partners, local organizations, trail systems, and residents to plan, fund, and implement recreation projects that create jobs, attract visitors, improve health, and strengthen local economies. Together, we are working to ensure no rural community is left behind when it comes to the benefits of nature— building a stronger, healthier, and more connected Appalachia, one outdoor project at a time. TRUST FOR PUBLIC L AND IN OHIO
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OHIO ADVISORY BOARD Thomas Tyrrell (Chair), CollaboRx Stephen Abdenour, Retired, Cleveland Clinic Mark A. Biggar, Jones Day Joe Blanda, MD, Retired, Orthopedic Surgeon Kim Byas, Sr., PhD, Leadership Lessons From…, Inc. Rita McNeil Danish, J2DStrategists LLC Roseanne Deucher, All Forward Sara Robinson Enaharo, Community Volunteer Ray Evans, Retired, First Energy Kenneth G. Howe, Retired, Cargill Michelle L. Johnson, Kimley-Horn Karl Kleinert, Leapfrog Services Christopher Kuhar, PhD, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo Samira Malone, Urban Sustainability Director’s Network Dave Mayer, Carbon Arc Ken Paull, Sequoia Financial Siu Yan Scott, Community Volunteer Kimberly Woodford, Journey on Yonder Deb Yandala, Retired, Conservancy for Cuyahoga Valley National Park Jim Zwack, Davey Tree
THANK YOU for helping create parks, protect special places, and connect more people to the outdoors in Ohio and beyond.
5500 S. Marginal Road, Suite 280 Cleveland, OH 44103
Join us Your gift ensures everyone has access to the outdoors. Every park we create, schoolyard we transform, trail we extend, and landscape we protect is thanks to supporters like you.
Sean Terry Associate Vice President Ohio State Director sean.terry@tpl.org Laura Hnat Ohio Director of Philanthropy laura.hnat@tpl.org
tpl.org/donate
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