(5/1) On March 28, Carroll Valley Borough was awarded a $25,000 grant through the Adams County Parks, Recreation and Green Space Grant Program to help fund phase 1 of the Carroll Valley Path System. Combined with the $84,564 grant received early last December from the Community Conservation Partnerships Program (C2P2), Phase 1 is now completely funded through grant monies.

The $25,000 grant application was submitted earlier this year in order to cover the cost of the Borough’s 20% match required by the C2P2 grant. The total funds received between the two grants covers the cost of construction, supplies and design work for the first phase of this project.

Currently no connection between major population centers or adjoining Fairfield and Carroll Valley Boroughs exists; the Carroll Valley Path System hopes to correct this problem. Within Carroll Valley proper, the full-proposed plan calls for the connection of the trails in and around Ranch Park with the Fairfield schools. In addition, the trail will connect to existing trails around the lakes in Carroll Valley and to the trails around Ski Liberty. It is also proposed that a connection trail will be built to connect Michaux State Park with Strawberry Hill Nature Preserve. Work isn’t projected to begin until next spring. Engineering designs will be drawn up this spring and summer, and the official construction of the trails will hopefully begin next year.

In other Carroll Valley "green" news, a tree-planting event was held on April 22 at the Ranch Trail Commons in the Borough. The project was organized by a local high school student with the help of Senator Alloway and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. 200 trees were donated, including 150 bare root trees and 50 container/planted upland trees of different species. Volunteers from Alloway’s Army, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and members from the Carroll Valley community gathered together to help plant these trees.

With the arrival of warmer weather, residents can begin to look forward to the Borough’s newest events: movies in the park. This event kicked off last fall on Halloween and was a great success. The Borough hopes to host several movies in the park events throughout the months of April through October, but no official dates have been announced at this time.

As an ending remark, Carroll Valley is currently looking for volunteers to join some of the Borough’s committees. The Planning Commission and the Sewer and Water Authority committee are currently in the direst need of volunteers. Anyone interested in learning more or joining either of these committees should contact the Carroll Valley Borough Office at 717-642-8269.