Let’s Connect is planning a Big Bike Kickoff and ribbon-cutting extravaganza for Thursday, Nov. 10 at 4:30 p.m. at the Perry Welcome Depot, featuring hometown hoopla and addresses by promoters of the Perry-to-Woodward bike trail connection.
The Let’s Connect committee is busily raising the $5 million needed to build the connector trail between Perry and Woodward and link the High Trestle Trail (HTT) to the Raccoon River Valley Trail (RRVT). The connector will join two premier recreational trails in Iowa that together attract more than 750,000 users annually to the region.
The committee and the Dallas County Conservation Board, which will build the trail, have so far raised about $1.3 million toward the goal, according to Mike Wallace, director of the Dallas County Conservation Board. The Big Bike Kickoff is intended to bring more attention to their fundraising efforts.
In order to celebrate the Big Bike and encourage more connector-trail donations, the drum line and marching band from Perry High School will first set the tone for the Let’s Connect event. A mascot’s-challenge bike race, pitting Rocky the RRVT Raccoon against the PHS Bluejay on a circuit around the Perry Welcome Depot, will add some fun.
Perry Mayor Jay Pattee will welcome donors and guests, and bike trail enthusiast and Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger will outline the importance of the connector trail to all 20 towns on both trails.
Dallas County Conservation Board Director Mike Wallace will then bring everyone up to date on the latest progress in landing grant funding for the connector, and several Let’s Connect committee members will present the conservation board with a $100,000 Big Bike check, donated in honor of the late Perry philanthropist Pete VanKirk.
The Big Bike will then be officially presented and illuminated, and the new Let’s Connect fundraising sign will be unveiled. Celebrants will then repair to the lobby of the Hotel Pattee for appetizers and a cash bar, where an online donation station and t-shirt station will await, and pictures will be taken.
Online donations are a new feature of the Let’s Connect campaign, according to Wallace, who said “many of our trail supporters prefer the online option.” Wallace said connector-trail supporters can now go to the Let’s Connect website and see an update on the project.
An online donation link has been set up on that website to receive contributions to the Dallas County Conservation Board (DCCB) to help raise the necessary funds to connect these two trail systems.
“The goal is raising approximately $5 million to build what is projected to be a crucial connection in the whole central Iowa trail network,” Wallace said. “That now includes more than 600 miles of paved trails that connect more than two dozen towns around the Des Moines metro area and beyond.”
He said the connector trail will add a new scale to bicycling options in central Iowa.
“The connection between Perry on the RRVT and Woodward on the HTT will create two new major trail loops,” Wallace said, “the first of about 86 miles if a rider started, say, in Perry and then used the HTT to downtown Des Moines and returned on the RRVT’s north loop to Perry.”
He said the second new loop would be about 118 miles starting on the same route but returning along the south-west loop of the RRVT.
Interested donors can look over the online donation packet and form. For more information, contact Wallace by email at mike.wallace@dallascountyiowa.gov or by phone at 515-465-3577.
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