Shipley opening a major victory

Nearly a year after the city cut funding and closed its doors, the

Donald G. Shipley Nature Center has reopened to visitors once again.

For 28 years, the 18-acre nature center in Huntington Beach

Central Park afforded some 40,000 visitors a year the opportunity to

learn about and enjoy the wonders of nature. A large majority of

those visitors were school children, many of whom who came from

cities where they otherwise saw very little of nature’s treasures.

In September 2002, in the face of a budget crisis, the City

Council cut the center’s $113,000 in funding, sold off the wild

animals that lived there and transferred the park ranger to beach

duty.

On Sunday, volunteer docents led visitors on a guided tour of the

lush nature center, pointing out native vegetation and wildlife.

Those volunteers, the Friends of the Shipley Nature Center, have

toiled since September not only to train docents, but to ready the

center for visitors once again and return it to a native Californian

paradise. Those volunteers could not bear to see the center languish

and close, and so didn’t let it. They have been out there each

Saturday morning removing intrusive weeds and planting native

vegetation. They have held fund-raisers and rallied others to their

cause.

The center just received another $10,000 grant from the Santa Ana

River Conservancy Trust fund to keep the Orange County Conservation

Corps for another four months. Members of the corps have been coming

to the center four times a week to weed, clear trails, remove

invasive trees and perform other work to restore the center to its

natural state.

All their hard work is paying off. The nature center will be open

for tours on the third Sunday of the month, for the next three

months. School tours will begin again in the fall.

It is a triumph for the Friends of the Shipley Nature Center, and

a triumph for the community that will benefit from their hard work.

These dedicated volunteers are to be commended. Their dedication,

perseverance and good old-fashioned hard work should be an

inspiration and example to us all.

In these financially tough times, when programs all over the city

are losing funding, they fought for something they believed in and

not only saved the center, but hopefully provided an example for the

youth of the city and other programs now being dealt the same harsh

blow.