ABOUT PLAN

The Northwest Indiana Regional Greenways and Blueways Plan

was developed jointly by the Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC) and the Openlands Project. Funding for the plan was provided through a generous grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation in the summer of 2005. The Foundation was created in 1952 to further the wide-ranging philanthropic and civic interests of Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley. It is a private foundation that supports a wide range of causes including conservation and wildlife protection, social welfare, education, art and cultural institutions, health care, and animal welfare. This effort represents a culmination of research, review, and analysis of local, regional, state, federal, and private endeavors that aim to preserve and restore linear open space corridors in the Northwest Indiana landscape. The reasons to do so vary. It may be for conservation purposes, environmental education, habitat protection, personal or community health, and recreation, or even to assure clean water, protect property from flooding, and preserve community aesthetics. It’s based on a realization that, by itself, property can easily lose these values, but linked with multiple neighbors, these values can be secured.