Our first grant was for the trail and parking improvements to the Kendall Pond Conservation Area.  The grant was awarded in the spring of 2001 by the NH DRED, Trails Bureau and was completed in the winter of 2002.  Although we were given three years to complete the project, we did it in two years.  For the project, 57% was paid for by the grant, 27% paid for by donations (from Conservation Commission & Mark Oswald) and the remaining has already been provided by Trailways in "sweat equity" out on the trail this past fall.  See the activities page for more information and photos from trail days, etc.

Here is a summary of the completed work:

$2700 and 78 volunteer hours were spent on the trail system which includes the following items:

• Writing the grant proposal
• Discussions with forester/logger on where to put the logging road that eventually completed the trail system loop
• Stump removal and rough grading with bull dozer
• Fine grading with tractor and york rake
• Hand tools purchased
• Exposed roots cut at ground level by hand
• Blazing (color coding) of the two trails

$4800 and 10 volunteer hours were spent on the parking area which includes the following items:

• Several discussions with town engineer regarding parking lot location and size
• Materials for parking surface (donated by Continental Paving of Londonderry)
• Parking area construction (provided by Londonderry’s public works department)
• Tree removal along entrance to improve site distance
• Small section of wood-on-wood guard rail

Summer/Fall 2001 - LT hires a bulldozer and operator to remove stumps and rocks in the trail. Then a tractor and york rake is used to groom the trails into a walking quality trail. In October a volunteer trail day brings the trail to final finished grooming, the trails are blazed to correspond with a map that is also being generated.

Spring 2001 – LT is informed that our grant application gets fully funded! The grant is for $5250 and LT has secured an additional $4000 in matching funds and services for a total of $9000 worth of improvements. Funds become available during the summer.

Winter 2000/2001- A second volunteer trail day was held on December 2 to begin clearing a great deal of brush, branches and logging debris that was left by the fall logging project.  An amazing number of volunteers showed up for a winter’s day in the woods. 

Over the winter we also submitted a grant application to the NH Bureau of Trails to attempt to fund our further KPCA trail improvements.  Desired improvements include removing stumps and grading the new trails and improving the parking area with compacted gravel.  LT had to meet with various town boards to gain further project approvals, (Planning Board, Conservation Commission, Town Council). 

Fall 2000 – Logging results in the beginning of two new trails. Conservation Commission and LT came up with a win/win plan that would get the desired new trails moving forward.  The forestry management work produces  “skidder / logging roads”. Together, we worked out a plan to place these logging roads where we would have wanted to build new trails. 

Spring 2000 – Our very first volunteer trail day was held to complete two items off the list: groom the existing trail and repair broken tables. This day resulted in 35 volunteer hours spent directly on the trail system! Our desired projects to add new trails and parking improvements were denied at this time by the Conservation Commission because large-scale forestry management/logging was planned for the fall of 2000.