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Fun Is Serious Business

Green spaces, recreational programs and fun family events create positive effects in our community. Our residents recognize this, as more than 50% of residents have participated in our programs; well above the Illinois state average of 38%1. Of course, this doesn’t even include the many visitors to our facilities, events and 70+ parks! Further, on our most recent Attitude & Interest Survey, residents gave us a 93.7% Satisfaction Rating.1 In short, we’re making life fun!

In fact, at HE Parks, we consider fun to be serious business. That’s because we know that what we do is not only fun, but it has a great fi nancial impact on our community, too. In 2015 HE Parks employed 776 people and paid $6.7 million in wages to residents in Hoffman Estates and
surrounding communities. These are the folks who are hard at work making sure that you have a great experience each time you visit our facilities, take your kids to a soccer game or summer camp, enjoy some downtime at your neighborhood park, get your daily workout or cool off at Seascape.
Throughout our state, park districts and related jobs employed 96,317; second only to California. Illinois park districts affected the state’s economy with nearly $13 billion in economic activity and more than $5 billion paid in labor wages.2

Nationally, America’s public park agencies generated nearly $140 billion in economic activity and supported almost 1 million jobs from operations and capital spending alone in 2013.

Benefits of Park Lands
In recent research, the amount of physical activity demonstrated by study participants directly related to safe/accessible park acreage
(Cohen et al., 2010).3

Young adults are two or three times more physically active when parks or recreation facilities are accessible compared with young adults that do not have the same opportunity (letsmove.gov).3

Exposure to nature can result in the improvement of attention disorders in children. (Frumkin, 2001).3
The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention has found that recreation and access to nature have positive effects on PTSD, diabetes, heart disease, ADHD and depression.3

Closer to home : HE Parks has more than 828 acres of accessible park land.
1 Attitude and Interest Survey,
2014 Comprehensive Master Plan heparks.org
2 Source Economic Impact Study, National Recreation
& Parks Association, 2013 nrpa.org
3 Illinois Parks and Recreation Association,
2016 ilipra.org