Merrimack River Greenway Trail-Already Bringing the Community Together

Today several dozen Concord area community members gathered together along a section of the proposed Merrimack River Greenway Trail corridor for the clean up of a future section of the trail corridor. This is a necessary first step to moving this project forward.

Noticing a request for volunteers over the weekend, I sent an e-mail to the MRGT address and waited for a response. Over the years I have volunteered for a variety of different positions. Most often never knowing fully what I was getting myself into until the first meeting.

The group that gathered was a diverse crowd ranging from my college age son to some active retirees. As I scanned the crowd for familiar faces, I started to see our community coming together. I remembered one of the organizers from attending some Bike and Pedestrian conferences together years ago, then I noticed a handful of other folks that I had worked for or with over the years. Later in the afternoon I ran into my older son's middle school cross country coach and even one of the kids from the team. My older son has completed graduate school so again these were friends from many years ago.

The trail corridor will still need a lot of work before it is fully usable, but the potential for this resource is undeniable. As the work for the day concluded, a number of us stood in the trees overlooking the river, old friends and new, discussing the potential for the corridor. Ideas of fund raising, runs along the corridor and connections to the river flooding through people's minds. I can hardly wait to see what will come next.