Ski Run Community Park

Project Partners: Friends of Ski Run, Sierra Sustainable Builders, Outdoor Gear Lab, Novus Select, Ben Fish, City of South Lake Tahoe

Funds Raised: $200,000 

In the Ski Run Boulevard neighborhood in South Lake Tahoe, over a thousand kids had no safe place to play, run, and explore. That is, until Friends of Ski Run built the new Ski Run Community Park.

This new park transformed a vacant lot into a gathering place for families, featuring an iconic play structure, a climbing boulder, and a sprawling picnic lawn. Local partners like SOS Outreach, Barton Health, Heavenly, and the League to Save Lake Tahoe will be providing historical and environmental education signage, offer bilingual education workshops on exercise, health, and nutrition, and help organize neighborhood clean-ups.

This is a community-led effort. From the start, Friends of Ski Run worked to bring a new approach to park design by involving community members and partners throughout the process. Thirty-five kids from Bijou Elementary and the Boys and Girls Club drew sketches of how they envisioned the park, and elements from those drawings were incorporated into the park design.

Together with Friends of Ski Run, the Tahoe Fund launched a $100,000 matching campaign. Due to the overwhelming generosity of our donors and our community, we met our goal and raised over $200,000 for the park!