The Foundation Of Bear Lake

 Anita Weston, Reporter

Rich Civic Times

Garden City, Utah.  October 9, 2018.  A foundation (a charitable foundation) is a legal category of nonprofit organization that will typically either donate funds and support to other organizations or provide the source of funding for its own charitable purposes.  Garden City created a foundation in June of 2015.  It is titled The Foundation of Bear Lake.

Currently, this Foundation Board includes: Bess Huefner Chair, Joey Stocking IT manager, Bruce Warner Tax advisor, Jackie Mead Secretary, Debbi Batt Marketing Specialist, Anita Weston reporter, Brian Carver, Karen Smith, Sidne and Leonard O'Reilley, and John Spuhler advisors.             

There are several goals that this Foundation would like to work toward.  First, the Foundation would like to work with Bear Lake Regional Commission to help in funding the bike path around the lake.  Second, partner with Garden City and the County to purchase another beach area for a park.  Third, to help with economic development in the area. 

The above goals will not be easy to meet unless we citizens of the community help in various ways.  We can donate money.  We can physically work on the projects that will move the City toward their goals, and we can ask others to donate—just because they appreciate and love Bear Lake. 

It was noted that we in Garden City need to help enhance what we already have.  The beach below the City Park has not been kept up very well this summer.  It takes extra time and effort to bring in sand, to pull a lot of the vegetation that is growing there, and so forth.  This, of course, takes people’s time as well as some money.  However, it could be a fantastic lakeside area if kept up as it should be.

Also, there are several accesses to the lake that have been taken over by people who were unaware that they were building on areas that had been set aside for public accesses.  These areas need to be watched, taken care of, and made more accessible to the public.  As time passes, these areas can be cleared of buildings, as well as getting the paths and roads widened to allow for easier access to the water.

Eventually, everyone in Garden City will be contacted and ask to donate money for the Foundation along with their input and ideas as to how we could improve accesses to the lake, keeping it beautiful, helping to get enough funds to actually buy more lake shore properties for public use and so forth.

If you buy on Amazon go through Amazon Smile and they will donate a part of the cost of the item you buy to the Foundation of Bear Lake at no  extra cost to  you.