Touring Plaster Creek public parks from the headwaters to the mouth may lead you to ask all sorts of questions about land use, communities, connectedness, flow and volume. What happens to the creek when it rains?
“One of the ways you can help ‘save the creek,’ so to speak, is by helping people connect with it…when you allow people to connect with a place, they take more stake in it. When they can connect with it, they enjoy it, they figure out the value that it has and they want to do something about it.” – Interviewee for oral history project
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Dutton-Shadyside Park (Kent County Park)
- Upstream park with playground, shelter, trails, and ball field
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Paris Park (City of Kentwood and Kent County)
- Quiet park with hiking trails
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Ken-O-Sha Park and Plaster Creek Trail
- Accessible paved trails through fantastic floodplain with an array of spring flowers and old trees. Trail connects Ken-O-Sha Park all the way to Grand Rapids Family Park and Bike Parks with some street/sidewalk sections
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Ken-O-Sha Park Mountain Biking
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Plaster Creek Family Park
- Offers ball fields and shelter area with trails for hiking
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Covenant Park
- 109 acres of greenspace on a retired golf course, featuring mowed walking paths along Plaster Creek
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Stanaback Park
- Small playground and picnic area offer access to paved walking trails overlooking wooded ravines along the Plaster Creek floodplain
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Bike Park
- Up and coming park offers lots of fun for bikers like trail riding along the creek or the more technical bike park features
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Roosevelt Park
- Offering playground, splash pad, rain gardens, soccer fields, shelter, and views of Plaster Creek downstream
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Water Resource Recovery Facility
- Park in the parking lot and walk towards Grand Rapids to visit the mouth of Plaster Creek where it joins the Grand River and continues to Grand Haven and Lake Michigan. Watching the water should lead you to ponder like Wendell Berry:
“People who live at the lower ends of watersheds cannot be isolationist—or not for long. Pretty soon they will notice that water flows, and that will set them to thinking about the people upstream who either do or do not send down their silt and pollutants and garbage. Thinking about the people upstream ought to cause further thinking about the people downstream. Such pondering on the facts of gravity and the fluidity of water shows us that the golden rule speaks to a condition of absolute interdependency and obligation. People who live on rivers might rephrase the rule in this way: Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” – from Watershed and Commonwealth by Wendell Berry
- Park in the parking lot and walk towards Grand Rapids to visit the mouth of Plaster Creek where it joins the Grand River and continues to Grand Haven and Lake Michigan. Watching the water should lead you to ponder like Wendell Berry: