April Showers No Deterent for Visitors to Fellows Riverside Gardens
Mill Creek MetroParks’ Fellows Riverside Gardens (FRG) nearly broke its park visitation record in April 2017. FRG is on track for a record breaking May, too. More than 32,000 community members visited Fellows Riverside Gardens to kick off the spring season. That is just 69 visitors shy of the garden’s record year set in 2014. MetroParks Director Aaron Young says that his goal is to grow even further.
“It’s great when you can approach record-setting attendance at a park,” Young said. “But we’re not done yet; we want to see new residents using the MetroParks for the first time and past visitors coming back again and again.”
FRG is a free public garden located at the northern end of Mill Creek Park in Youngstown, Ohio. It features 12 acres of landscape with diverse and colorful plant displays. FRG has the D.D. and Velma Davis Education and Visitor Center making the garden a destination for all seasons. April through early May this year, the visitor center had 49,234 community members stop into the center. That is up from 46,335 in 2016. There’s also Kravitz’s Garden Café, which is open from 10am-4pm Tuesdays-Sundays offering a variety of quiche, entrees and beverages.
“Our goal is to provide park and recreation space while being responsive to community needs,” Young said. “The services offered at Fellows Riverside Gardens, and the community’s response to them, show that we’re on the right track.”
Learn more about Fellows Riverside Gardens and all of Mill Creek MetroParks at MillCreekMetroParks.org.