<< Back 12/4/02 Haiman Foundation commits $42,000 to Smokies projects SMN The Richard Haiman National Park Foundation of Orlando, Fla. has granted a total of $42,846 to Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park to support three different park projects. The Haiman Foundation provided $10,000 to support “Parks in Classrooms.” This program makes it possible for resource education rangers to bring educational programs into local schools during the colder months of the year. When urban schools begin to learn what the park has to offer, they often become interested in making their first visits to the park. A portion of the grant funds can be used to help needy schools accomplish these trips by paying for the costs of buses for in-park programs. In the 2001-2002 school year, park service staff delivered 280 Parks in Classrooms programs to 5,200 elementary and middle school students in Tennessee and North Carolina. This is the fourth year that the Haiman Foundation has helped support these educational programs. The Haiman Foundation also granted $18,846 to help make the new Science Learning Center at Purchase Knob, near Maggie Valley, fully accessible to the handicapped. The money will be used during the second phase of construction, which is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2003. Richard Haiman was confined to a wheelchair in the final months of his life, and the foundation has made a special effort to make the park more accessible to the handicapped. The third grant from the Haiman Foundation will provide $14,000 to renovate the Mollie’s Ridge shelter on the Appalachian Trail near the western end of the park. This grant will also provide funds to install sanitary facilities at eight different shelters along the Smokies’ section of the Appalachian Trail. These projects are part of an ongoing effort to renovate all of the park’s trail shelters to provide hikers with safer, cleaner, and more comfortable shelters. The newer shelters are also designed to minimize potential problems with black bears. Richard Haiman was an avid hiker and long-time supporter of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Haiman gave $65,000 to Friends of the Smokies after Hurricane Opal damaged many of the park’s trails in 1996. At his death in 1997, the Richard Haiman National Park Foundation was set up to fund trail repairs, educational programs, and other projects in selected national parks. The foundation has provided more than $156,000 to the Smokies, as well as another $100,000 to five other national parks. “This year we are dedicating all of our available funding to the Smokies, which was Richard Haiman’s favorite park,” said Tom Brosch, a Gatlinburg resident and board member for the Haiman Foundation. Friends of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, an independent, non-profit organization, assists the National Park Service by raising funds and public awareness and providing volunteers for needed projects. Since 1993, Friends of the Smokies has raised more than $9 million to support conservation, education, and other projects in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.