The Outdoor Recreation Legacy Partnership (ORLP) is a part of the National Park Service’s Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which is administered in Kansas by the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism (KDWPT). ORLP awards substantial one-to-one matching grants to help urbanized communities provide outdoor recreational opportunities for their residents.
The goal of ORLP is to support land acquisition and development projects in neighborhoods or communities that will create or reinvigorate parks and other outdoor recreation spaces in ways that encourage people, especially youth, to connect or re-connect with the outdoors. Priority will be given to projects located in communities that are economically disadvantaged and are underserved in terms of outdoor recreation resources. Put simply, the program strives to help create new opportunities for outdoor recreation where there are a lot of people, particularly children, with no place to play. Selected projects may receive acquisition and development grants of $250,000 to $750,000 each, and planning grants of up to $75,000.
To qualify, applicant communities must be named as one of the 497 urbanized areas delineated by the Census Bureau or be a jurisdiction that lies geographically within one of the urbanized areas. An urbanized area is defined as being densely settled with 50,000 or more people.
Applications are available at KDWPT’s website, www.ksoutdoors.com/KDWPT-info/Grants. For more information on requirements and the application process, call Kati Westerhaus, LWCF grant coordinator, at 620-672-5911. Deadline for submission is April 22.
