Friends of Madison County Parks & Trails

FMCPT Membership / Sponsorship

If you ride, walk, or run on Madison County Trails, please join us as an FMCPT member or sponsor. Our all-volunteer team can only continue its amazing work with the support of wonderful trail users...
...LIKE YOU!

Who We Are

The Friends of Madison County Parks and Trails is a non-profit 501c3 organization staffed by an all-volunteer team dedicated to supporting the Madison County Park District and the City of London. Our primary goal is to complete and maintain the critical link of the Ohio to Erie Trail through Madison County as it goes from the Ohio River to Lake Erie.

Ohio to Erie Trail sign and bike weeds

Why Join or Sponsor?

Support from your membership or sponsorship goes directly to helping our community. Everything we do is directed toward improving our parks & trails, and helping promote our wonderful local community.

We’re all volunteers here. Each dollar we’re honored to receive is frugally managed with 100% of your money going toward achieving these goals. (Heck, every one of the FMCPT Board of Directors even pays for their own meal at the annual FMCPT Christmas Party!)

Be assured: your membership or sponsorship – and your yearly renewal – is both gratefully appreciated and carefully spent.

We have a regular monthly meeting (full details here) and everyone is welcome. We love to see you join us!

FMCPT Membership / Sponsorship Options

Membership or sponsorship is easy, and REALLY helps! Just pick your support level, and pay via PayPal or credit card.

Your Help is Needed!

Memberships and sponsorships help keep our all-volunteer efforts going. Join, or renew, today to help keep us going strong. (We’re a non-profit 501c3, so it may be tax deductible!) Every membership supporter helps… and thank you!

Top

Around 2009, an idea first developed during a conversation between Wayne Roberts with FMCPT and Van Viney, CEO of MATCO Services. It took a while, but in 2019 work began in earnest to begin construction of a "welcome" area on the east side of London. This was envisioned to compliment our beautiful "welcome" on the west side of town, the Prairie Grass Trailhead with its camping area, shelter house, and many other amenities. The original vision to create a multi-panel mural using the bricked-in windows of the old tile factory building that MATCO now owned was expanded upon to include a mini-park, a respite with benches, pleasant landscaping, and more.

Many local people have contributed many, many hours of brain power and sweat equity to bring this project from an old factory wall and overgrown grounds to the trail highlight it has become. We have kept costs extremely low though all of the in-kind donations and almost innumerable hours of donated labor. But also, we received great support support for the funding we required, all from Madison County-area companies and people. It was, and is, a true "community" project.

An added benefit was realized a couple of years ago when we found that we could easily create access to Roberts Pass for MATCO clients and employees. They previously had found handicapped-friendly trail access difficult if not downright impossible. For the first time, they are able to safely access their next-door neighbor, the Roberts Pass section of the Ohio to Erie Trail!

Further value was gained when Michele Bouquet and Sue Cline joined our efforts bringing the wisdom of the Madison County Master Gardeners with them. They, and many of their cohorts, contributed tons of time developing and implementing a gorgeous native plants garden in our mini-park, along with several pollinator plant zones. We hope to build on the value of this by adding educational kiosks throughout the mini-park. We also plan to work with area groups, including the OSU Extension Center, on educational opportunities for local schools, seniors, etc.