I am so happy that the land trust raised the money they needed for this acquistion. Mt. Benson is such an asset to this entire community. This news just made my year! Mt. Benson will stay ever green It took two years of bottle drives, concerts and fundraising to collect cash for land
Saturday, July 05, 2008
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After more than two years of fundraising, 212 hectares on the upper front face of Mount Benson will be saved for parkland "in perpetuity."
A $50,000 donation from Mountain Equipment Co-op on Friday was the last financial piece of the puzzle in the campaign, led by the Nanaimo Area Land Trust, to raise $475,000 from the community toward the purchase of the property.
Fears that the land overlooking the city would eventually succumb to development prompted NALT to start their campaign.
As significant public interest in preserving the area for recreational and conservation purposes grew, the Regional District of Nanaimo and NALT partnered in 2006 to secure the land as a park and buy it from its owners, Ontario-based Pennclan Company Limited and P.E. Reeve and Associates Limited, for $950,000.
The RDN paid the full amount for the land at the time and NALT committed to the campaign to raise half of the purchase price.
"It was a lot of hard work, but I always believed we could do it," an ecstatic Gail Adrienne, NALT's longtime executive director, said on Friday
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