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About Our Organization
The South Dakota Parks and Wildlife Foundation is a non-profit organization that helps fund projects and programs within the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks. The Foundation's mission is to solicit and encourage support to preserve and protect South Dakota's natural resources, its outdoor heritage and provide expanded recreation and education opportunities. The project that the South Dakota Parks and Wildlife Foundation will be helping with this year is located at Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve is North Sioux City, SD.
Maud and Mary Adams donated their family's land to the SD Game, Fish and Parks in the mid-1980's. They wanted visitors to experience and learn about the cultural and natural history of South Dakota. Their mother was an experienced gardener and love to work on large flower and vegetable gardens. Part of the homestead site was full of color and food for dinner when they were growing up. Our project will bring that memory back to life. We would like to build three wheelchair accessible raised garden beds to allow people of all ages and abilities to work with the dirt and grow beautiful flowers and tasty treats to enjoy. One flower garden will be used to grow vegetables and fruit that the Adams family enjoyed. The second garden will be full of herbs and the third garden will be a pollinator sensory flower garden full of color, scents and textures. School groups, toddlers, visitors, special needs groups and every age will experience the opportunity to enjoy and help with this project. What a great addition to the homestead site that will allow visitors to take a step back in time and grow their knowledge of nature.
Our mission of Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve is to foster inner renewal and connection to place through active learning experiences with nature, history and recreation. The Adams Homestead Cultural and Natural History Interpretation Design project is the redesign of exhibits inside the Visitor Center as well as outdoor way-finding and interpretive signage. The Visitor Center Exhibit Concepts will include three different zones. The Welcome and Legacy Zone, The Nature Zone and The Homesteading Zone. The Legacy Zone - Visitors, especially those coming for the first time, will enter the building eager to learn about programs and experiences available on-site. This area will offer interactive way-finding and the chance to dive deeper into the enduring legacy gifted by Maud and Mary Adams. The Nature Zone - will offer younger visitors playful and multi-sensory ways to explore the nature preserve from inside the building, with a focus on birds and wildlife. The birdwatching area will provide an area where visitors can sit and pick up a pair of binoculars to spot birds. Visitors can also admire the bird collage above the windows expressing diversity found on site. The Homestead Zone - Visitors will be transported back in time to the settlement of the homestead by the Adams Family. It will also provide guidance to the homestead outside where they will explore the trails. The Adams Homestead's ten miles of limestone trails are among its primary attractions, offering year-round access to abundant beauty and recreation. Updated trail signs will improve way-finding across the site. New signage will also create a cohesive sense of place and encourage self-directed discovery, recreation and appreciation. The Arrival Way-finding kiosk will be in a prominent place and accessible to visitors so they can have a clear path to locate the main entrance to the visitor center, directions to the homestead site and paths to the walking trails. The kiosk will feature a large way-finding map then repeated in trail signage. Our recreational users want to use the trails for exercise, healthy living or just finding a quite place to take a walk. The new interpretive signs will engage our visitors to explore the trails and outdoor attractions and help them discover the natural and cultural histories of this unique site.