Celebrating our Partners: Heritage and Nonprofit Partners
- by Tataboline Enos
- June 25, 2022
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Today’s Great Outdoors Month post goes to the many heritage and nonprofit partners who are helping to grow the outdoor economy in the PA Wilds.
The PA Wilds region has two designated heritage areas, Lumber Heritage Region and Scenic Route 6. These organizations, along with Susquehanna Greenway Partnership and PA Lumber Museum, have long been leaders in the regional effort to grow tourism in the PA Wilds, collaborating on projects that enhance the visitor experience and tell our region’s story in a meaningful way.
Partners like Pennsylvania Environmental Council, Headwaters Charitable Trust, Keystone Trails Association, Armstrong Trails, and many local trail clubs and recreation organizations help advance local and regional trail and rec projects and maintenance that benefit local residents while also enhancing the region as an outdoor recreation destination.
Alongside these, the West Penn Power Sustainable Energy Fund has helped us tell the sustainable energy story behind a number of our key attractions in the region, as well as make our new PA Wilds Media Lab energy efficient.
The Center for Rural PA regularly informs our work with its stellar research and studies, and we are looking forward to their study on the economic impact of the PA Wilds brand, currently underway.
Under BBBRC, several of these partners would complete projects in their wheelhouses that would grow the region’s outdoor rec industry cluster, such as installing bike repair stations along Route 6, doing an assessment of the PA Wilds as a cycling destination, completing the Brady Tunnel project (a top-10 PA trail gap), bringing new hiking guidebooks to market, and more! We thank these partners for all they do to help grow the region’s outdoor rec industry to support revitalized rural communities.
About the Series:
To celebrate June being Great Outdoors Month, we are highlighting partners throughout June who are helping grow the outdoor recreation economy here in the PA Wilds to help revitalize rural communities. Our 13-county region is the only outdoor rec industry cluster to make it to the final round of the national Build Back Better Regional Challenge competition, where we are now competing for $50M in federal investment from the US Economic Development Administration. We couldn’t have made it this far without our incredible partners!
Learn more about the PA Wilds and the BBBRC competition here.
