The bulk of Carol Evans’ career has been in communications and marketing for myriad Knoxville mainstays - the Lady Vols, Knoxville Chamber, Scripps Networks - but it was her role on the county parks advisory board that set the ball in motion for one of her biggest endeavors to date. The Legacy Parks board was born out of that role and morphed into a job that Carol calls, “obnoxiously fun.”
“I’ve been the Executive Director here since 2007, and I was probably an average outdoors person. I sure wasn’t hard core, but I liked being outside and active. I still find it exciting. A lot of what we do is telling a story. It sure wasn’t my plant knowledge that brought me here,” says Carol, laughing.
The mission of the Legacy Parks Foundation is simple - make the best use out of unused, underdeveloped land in and around Knoxville. The Urban Wilderness is likely the foundation’s best-known initiative, and it came about because a group of people got together and asked a good first question: How do we take advantage of this land that doesn’t seem to have value? Once they started looking at spaces through a creative lens, the options opened up.
“Parks are never well-funded, so there were opportunities to be strategic. We got traction on being a partner with the city and county. There was always a great collaboration to do things,” says Carol. “We fell into discovering the real value of small urban spaces. There were other nonprofits, like the Nature Conservancy and Land Trust for Tennessee, but they focused on large spaces. We discovered that 12 acres near your home were just as important as 120 acres near the national park.”
Carol notes that Legacy Parks doesn’t have a five-year plan, but that’s because they never know what’s around the corner. Donated land doesn’t arrive on anyone’s schedule, and the process of buying an acre of remnant land in South Knoxville to turn it into a playground might take longer than expected. When donated land or a potential buy comes their way, the process begins with deciding whether or not the land has public use. They look at whether or not it can be connected to another park, or how accessible it might be, or if that’s the perfect location for a new play space.
“Sometimes we find land and ask people, if the opportunity arises, which just happened last week. There are a few acres in South Knoxville and I tracked someone down on Facebook about it. We’re very open - we’re a nonprofit, so we just ask. There’s no bartering,” says Carol. “But we also get the other - farms or personal property that people want to see developed but not for a business. That’s the issue. There’s a generational shift and kids don’t want the land. If it can be conserved, we want to conserve it.”
As a nonprofit with only a few employees, Legacy Parks relies on donations (physical and monetary), endowments, and fundraising. It also relies on the continued cooperation of the Legacy Parks Board, which is made up of more than 20 business people with varied resumes, from realtors and builders to bankers and lawyers. Each board member brings a personal and professional perspective to achieving the foundation’s mission.
“The board is a huge strength,” says Carol. “It’s not people in nonprofits. It’s people who had skills to bring. They are very clear on what we should do. We may not always succeed, but they are assertive on what our role should be.”
One of the current areas of interest in creating more adaptive spaces in and around Knoxville. In fact, Legacy Parks just opened the first adaptive trail at Sharp’s Ridge, and now they’re working in the Powell community to create adaptive docks along creeks and develop Collier Preserve, a 12-acre nature park donated in 2017 by Dr. Bob and Louise Collier. In February 2021, 42 trees were planted in Collier Preserve thanks to an Urban Trees Grant from Trees Knoxville.
“We don’t have a space requirement,” says Carol. “Our first donation was an acre in Fountain City, and that allowed for the Fountain City Skatepark to be built. We do look at what can it be and what it should be, and what it might look like long-term. Ninety percent of what we do has interest in being public land.”
On top of keeping an eye out for undeveloped land, Carol continues to spotlight the benefits of green spaces for every citizen, particularly in a time when outdoor accessibility is invaluable.
“A park near your home matters. We talked about being an outdoor town, and the Urban Wilderness put us on the map for being an outdoor town. That is an asset. Tourism gets it. The Chamber gets it. I don’t have to make that case anymore. But then a pandemic hits, and now we’re so grateful for outdoor spaces,” says Carol. “The flipside is we’re wanting to hand off land and we have to be mindful that we have the easy part.”
Once the land is transitioned to public space and open for public use, the newly transformed park is passed on to the city, county, or state for long-term management.
“It’s important we tell our elected officials that we like our parks. We have 225 parks here. It’s a shared value. It doesn’t happen by accident, and it doesn’t happen without funding,” says Carol. “It’s a great return, which we all learned last year. To be able to be outside and let your kids and dogs run around, and be safe? We are fortunate. We are lucky to live here.”
For more information, visit LegacyParks.org.