Through exceptional experiences, we strive to build a sense of community; enhance people’s lives; and contribute to the enrichment of the individual, family, and community.
Partnership with the Village of Glenview has resulted in stormwater improvements that alleviated flooding for 1,150 homes, provided 27.1 acre-feet of retention and land swaps, and addressed community health needs. Partnering with the Village also benefited GPD with nearly $3 million in improvements to our 18-hole golf course, playgrounds and field renovations at two parks. GPD matched these funds, adding ADA improvements and renovating a field house.
Historic Wagner Farm is not just a farm; it’s an educational hub. The Be@The Farm program is held in partnership with TrueNorth Education Cooperative, a special education association, and annually welcomes 25 student farmers ages 5 to 22 years through an intergovernmental agreement (IGA). Students develop leadership skills by supporting greenhouse operations; engaging in field work and livestock care; and planning, caring for, and harvesting 2.5 acres of produce. This mutually beneficial partnership provides unique educational experiences for TrueNorth students while supporting tasks essential to the Farm’s operations.
Our intergovernmental agreement with the Glenview library benefits our community and staff. GPD maintains library property and we, in turn, receive free services and use of the library for meetings, trainings and programming. GPD staff receive library cards regardless of residency. The District offers unique day camp programming at the library, and we’ve hosted over ten joint events in the last three years. GPD is included in the Library of Things, where guests can “check-out” a pool pass or fitness membership in addition to a book.
GPD has renewed partnership with Endeavor Health to provide accessible community services. Endeavor provides $400,000 in lease income to house a clinic, rehabilitation center, and wellness store at our community center, home to one million annual visitors. The Endeavor Clinic is home to a new, integrative medicine clinic, where holistic-trained physicians, acupuncturists, and massage therapists provide services through over 7,500 patient visits annually. Endeavor offers specialized programming using our amenities.
The District signed a four-year sponsorship contract with Glenview Bank & Trust as a Park Partner. Their sponsorship enhances signature events throughout the year and increases access to District programs by supporting the LINK and Leisureship scholarship programs. The LINK program doubles the value of government-assisted food vouchers when used at our Farmer’s Market. Intended outcomes include expansion of the Leisureship program, maintaining the LINK program at the Farmer’s Market, and continued satisfaction of our partners to encourage continued financial support.
GPD committed to providing summer camp opportunities for 120 children in our community experiencing homelessness after identifying their needs in partnership with the school district. Partnering with our Park Foundation and Northfield Township yielded $130,000 in scholarships. The school district shared the additional costs with GPD and provided transportation, family counseling, and translation services. GPD evaluated camp experiences through surveys, and staff discreetly monitored students to provide an equitable experience.
Residents validated our strength in providing exceptional customer service in our 2022 Community-Wide Survey. Nearly 92% of residents rated us positively and 49% hold the District in highest regard. The District’s average esteem rating (0–10 scale) is 8.2. GPD ratings are significantly higher than the statewide benchmark (6.8 average) and average scores from nearby park districts (7.7). The most significant result from the survey was learning that 87% of residents feel they belong and are included in our parks, facilities and offerings.
Maximizing taxpayer trust is accomplished through sound financial stewardship, with only 50% of funding coming from taxes, one of the lowest tax to non-tax revenues in the state. GPD represents only 7.8% of homeowners’ taxes. Residents rate the overall value of their taxes as favorable (7.3 on a 0–10 scale). Sound revenue management has also increased GPD’s net position by 9.9%.
GPD diversifies and leverages its funding resources and partnerships. Over the last three years, the District utilized over $7 million from donations, grants, and sponsorships to acquire three acres of land, upgrade four miles of trails, build new, inclusive and accessible playgrounds, expand pickleball courts, add new museum exhibits, restore native habitat and improve stormwater management. This past year, the District received $3,675,000 in state grants, including a recent $2.8 million Park and Recreational Facility Construction grant that will be used to renovate our indoor aquatics center.
To control the cost of capital and reduce interest paid on debt while keeping taxes at modest levels, the District uses built-up reserves rather than debt to minimize the impact on the taxpayer. Additionally, the District has repeatedly chosen to keep short debt schedules to reduce interest rates and increase flexibility for future projects. The District chose to repay debt over 13 years instead of 20 years, saving taxpayers $10 million. Almost 51% of GPD’s revenues are non-tax, far above the national average. Glenview is one of only eleven park districts in Illinois with an Aaa bond rating.
We maintain what we have for all. A capital asset replacement program builds up reserves annually based on the useful life of assets. These accumulated funds ($20 million) are then reinvested at the end of the useful life to cover replacement costs. The District averages $4 million annually in capital replacement projects.
reserve.
GPD converted 7.4 acres to native areas, hosted 24 zero-waste events, and decreased electric and fuel use by over 1% annually. Furthermore, GPD provides education to further historical stewardship. Overall, 98% of community members reported visiting a park or facility within the last year, of which 50% visited The Grove or Historic Wagner Farm. The Grove reported 55,890 program visits, 7,274 tour visits and 35,000 visitors to the Nature Center. Wagner Farm boasted 36,313 program visits, 6,265 tour visits and 69,908 general visits, a 7% increase in three years. These two facilities educate over
1,000 school groups annually.
GPD developed an Urban Forestry Management Plan (UFMP) to provide data-driven solutions, goals, and milestones. GPD is leading in the inventory and diversity of its trees in Illinois. GPD exceeds the “20-10-5” rule, a best urban forestry management practice that states a tree population should ideally have no more than 20% of any single family, 10% of any single genus, and 5% of any single species. “Undesirable” trees decreased annually from 483 to 451, with the District managing over 22,300 trees. GPD planted 835 trees in the last three years, surpassing the plan’s targets.
Guided by Strategic/Comprehensive Plans, our environmental team recommends and implements actions for conservation, energy efficiency, and preservation. Highlights of success across the park district include:
These efforts have made us the top Park District employer in the state, recognized by IPRA as a Best Workplace Award recipient. Some highlights of our communication and staff engagement efforts include:
As part of the accreditation process, Glenview Park District had to demonstrate compliance with 154 recognized standards and document all policies and procedures. Often the process helps identify efficiencies and heighten areas of accountability, all of which translate into higher quality service and operation to benefit the community. We are honored to be recognized as one of only 206 park and recreation agencies who hold CAPRA accreditation nationwide and one of only nine agencies in Illinois.
Our staff-led Recognition Team developed Innovation awards for initiatives that have improved business processes, provided value to the community, or resulted in new programs and practices. This program fosters innovation, collaboration and efficiency. We received 32 implemented initiatives as submissions for the award, which showed how they saved thousands of dollars and hours.
Challenged by increased private competition and the pandemic, we set out to reimagine and re-energize our offerings.
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Financially self-supporting our new state-of-the-art ice center at the end of a pandemic created an unprecedented challenge.
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Maintaining and hiring a skilled workforce is a challenge for any organization, which takes ongoing strategies to be successful.
learn more learn moreThe purpose of the customer service program is to advance customer service, increase customer satisfaction, and improve employee motivation and engagement to generate greater customer and employee retention. The overall goal is to provide proper training, develop customer service skills, create standard processes, creating a District wide team that demonstrates professional internal and external customer service to improve customer and employee satisfaction and loyalty.
KEY OBJECTIVES
The Glenview Park District celebrates the diversity of races, beliefs, religions, abilities and experiences among our patrons and our staff. The DEI Committee believe this diversity strengthens our community. We are committed to constant improvement through staff training and recruitment strategies, diversification of programming, and an inclusive and welcoming environment where community engagement is encouraged.
KEY OBJECTIVES
The purpose of the Environmental Team is to promote environmental awareness throughout the District. The team’s primary goal is to improve the environmental impact of operations and services for employees, patrons and volunteers and to promote a culture of environmental stewardship through education, communication and the identification and analysis of environmental related issues affecting the District.
KEY OBJECTIVES
The FUN Team’s objective is to promote fun in the workplace and a sense of camaraderie for all employees through special events that are inclusive and easily accessible for everyone to participate in. The goal of the Fun Team is to provide opportunities for staff members (full and part time) from different facilities to interact with each other in organized, enjoyable sponsored events.
KEY OBJECTIVES
The goal of a recognition program should be to appropriately recognize individual achievement that goes beyond the normal scope of the job requirements; recognize team, facility, or division successes to include but not limited to, significant cost savings, improved service and performance, innovative ideas, completion of a special project, etc… These recognitions are in addition to the years of service recognitions currently in place.
KEY OBJECTIVES
The purpose of the Safety Committee is to assist in providing safe and efficient operations and services for employees, patrons and volunteers and to promote a culture of safety through education, communication and the identification and analysis of safety related issues affecting the District.
KEY OBJECTIVES
The purpose of the Wellness Committee is to assist in both providing knowledge and access to PDRMA’s PATH (Positive Activities Towards Health) wellness program as a means to increase the success of the Glenview Park District. PATH wellness education includes, but is not limited to, the education and importance of physical, emotional, social, and financial wellbeing. The wellness team plans to utilize PATH and its tools in order to support our internal community. The team further intends to develop, implement and administer a plan to make PATH more accessible to all employees, thus increasing participation and wellness in the district.
KEY OBJECTIVES
GPD worked with the husband of former Commissioner Judy Beck through his Beck Foundation to launch the Judy Beck Grant program. The privately-funded grant supports generations of new conservation leaders by supporting innovative projects throughout the community. Over the last three years, GPD has funded 20 projects totaling $35,062 and is working to endow the Judy Beck Grant.
Staff at The Grove developed a new program called Grove Green Girls to support and empower young women in the areas of science, technology engineering and math, in addition to learning historic skills and pioneer crafts. The program encourages girls to experiment using basic “old” skills in order to develop new ideas, providing an opportunity for girls to thrive in the STEM disciplines. Ten Grove Green Girls participated in 2023 for over 245 volunteer hours and 490 activity hours.
Farm staff moved from bagged feed delivery to the development of grain bins that can be filled from a delivery truck. The cost of bagging feed at the mill is $60 per ton. Each truck delivery is the equivalent of 18 trips to the feed mill, saving GPD approximately $2,000 annually and about 160 staff hours and 180 gallons of diesel fuel annually. This innovation saves money, minimizes the risk of injuries among farm staff, and improves the quality of feed because it is stored in a sealed bin.
Promotion of All Are Welcome during Pride Month.
Staff completely redeveloped the training program for camp counselors in 2024 to ensure better retention of the values and skills needed for our counselors. The four-day training included interactive and new ways of learning to help counselors put their learning immediately into implementation. This was a refreshing change from the previous format of dry presentations outlining policies and procedures.
On October 20, 2021, Park Center Health and Fitness launched their new, virtual group fitness platform – Fitness on the Go. The platform, hosted through Vimeo as a monthly subscription-based channel, features 30 different fitness videos for users to follow along to from anywhere. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have transitioned to virtual fitness options in order to stay safe at home. As the fitness team analyzed market trends and changes throughout the country, it became clear that offering a virtual fitness product as part of membership was becoming a standard way for fitness centers to keep members engaged and active.
A bold COVID-time plan, the Feeding Glenview initiative would temporarily repurpose Historic Wagner Farm into a production based farm, producing food for local consumption while reducing overall operating costs and with only a fraction of the Farm’s normal staff. To achieve its stated goal of producing enough food for 50 families per week, the Farm relied on its longtime partnerships with local organizations.
The aquatics department went from filling out individual swim lesson progress booklets for each participant at the end of a session, to creating a customized merge that is printed to hand out during the last swim class and later, emailed to each lesson participant reminding them to sign up for the next session of lessons. This was done by creating a “stage tracker” to keep track of swimmer progress.
The Wagner Farm team envisioned, designed, constructed, and implemented the new Mobile Chicken Coop at Historic Wagner Farm. The need for the new coop started with an increased customer demand for fresh farm eggs. Noticing a potentially greater revenue stream the team put their creativity to action. Us that work at the farm are very focused on sustainability, education, and increasing farm product revenue. The coop was designed with these principles in mind.
Park Center Health and Fitness was the host site for the exclusive Midwest Fitness Residency of Tae Bo creator Billy Blanks, bringing specialty classes and events to our members and residents.
When we think of “AI” these days, people think of artificial intelligence. But in the cattle industry, AI means “artificial insemination”. Our farm manager has recently attended training and started an in-house breeding program to provide greater control of animal care and educational programming for our visitors.
Historic Wagner Farm has developed an incredible strategy and plan for how to strengthen their social media presence based on past performance and testing.
Several residents provided feedback that they would like to enjoy expanded access to Historic Wagner Farm in the evening. In response to this, staff scheduled one evening per month during the summer to provide later hours and programming for visitors with great success.
Historic Wagner Farm has expanded opportunities for engagement with preschoolers through programs and field trips.
Glenview Police reached out to Historic Wagner Farm in the help of rescuing a cow loose! While the cow was not from Wagner Farm, our staff and facility are known as experts in the area and were able to lend support to the effort.
Winter tends to be a quieter time at The Grove in terms of registration for programming and overall visitation. To encourage winter engagement, they launched and hosted a new “winter fest” sort of event that ties in with the recently renovated Interpretive Center – Robert’s Yukon Adventure Day!
The Glenview Community Ice Center partnered with Culver’s, Dairy Queen and Glenview Dairy Bar to transform the facility into the “Glenview Community Ice CREAM Center” during its Stay Cool at Back to School program. The program was widely successful with hundreds of residents participating and enjoying a wonderful experience, all while supporting our local business community.
Glenview Community Ice Center invested in 8 on-ice bumper cars. Patrons ages 6 and up who meet height requirements can ride and bump their way around the studio rink for a new recreation opportunity! The bumper cars have been a big hit, typically selling out days in advance.
A detailed plan was made for preschool family engagement for the year starting in July 2022 and ending in June 2023. Each month, an event or activity was planned for the students and their families. Depending on the month, multiple activities range from inviting parents in to share about their occupations to a child’s night out.
The park district partnered with school district 34 to offer special summer camp opportunities to students who were displaced from summer school programming due to planned construction.
Staff at The Grove raised funds to provide a free program in honor of the late Barbara Swanson. A local dance teacher and dedicated volunteer at The Grove, Barbara was beloved by many.
Amid a tech-centric world, staff members at The Grove devised a program that could teach children historic skills and pioneer crafts. Staff took the idea a step further by incorporating the disciplines of STEM into the program.
A mud put which held about 700 pounds of mud was constructed by Ernest Sanchez for participants to play in however they wanted! Families took their shoes off and walked in mud, splashed in it ,threw it like Pollack at the art panel, wore it, and even “bathed” in mud.
In 2022, staff set out to make the livestock feed grain process more efficient. Their goal was to cut down staff time, fuel, money and the amount of paper bags being used and recycled. The end result is a projected savings of nearly $50,000 over ten years.
A staff member at Historic Wagner Farm led an initiative to bring produce from the farm into production for sale to the community. After health inspections and procedural changes, she launched sales of items like soups, pies and quiche. Within one year she produced 2,800 offerings raising $17,000 in a new revenue stream.
Staff at Historic Wagner Farm evaluated opportunities for expanded programming and revamped their onsite tours. Through teamwork, they added new historical elements from the archives resources and launched new historical interpretation tours incorporating games and educational activities for the general public.
School’s Out Camp REC was developed in partnership between the Park District and Wesley Child Care, to provide families a way to participate in Recreation, Enrichment and a sense of Community when school is not in session. The program fulfills the needs of working parents as well as the needs of the children in Glenview.
Fairy Quest is a new, self-guided tour that was developed at The Grove and is offered through their mobile app. The tour features hints for each of the nine fairy doors placed throughout The Grove’s trails. Staff built each of the fairy doors out of found materials at The Grove. Staff climbed many trees, and walked off many trails, to place the doors along the trails for visitors to spy and spot out. Parents and grandparents come into the Interpretive Center asking specifically about the fairies living at The Grove. It is so fun for our staff to see the youngest kids light up with excitement when they find the first door and truly believe a fairy lives in the house.
In the spring of 2021, Historic Wagner Farm was set to unveil its latest public amenities in the form of the new Farm Adventure Area. An integral part of the construction were four raised bed gardens intended to act as sensory gardens for public interaction. The vision became reality thanks to the partnership of True North (NSSED) Be@the Farm Program.
a community in which everyone enjoys daily happiness, health, and an appreciation for the environment.
GPD developed this plan, shaped by the community, to guide park, facility, and program development decisions for ten years.
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The strategic plan outlines GPD’s purpose, envisioned future, and strategic priority areas in which the District will invest time, talent, and resources within the next 3 years.
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