Green spaces, recreational programs and fun family events create positive effects in our community. Our residents\u00a0recognize this, as more than 50% of residents have participated in our programs; well above the Illinois state average\u00a0of 38%1. Of course, this doesn\u2019t even include the many visitors to our facilities, events and 70+ parks! Further,\u00a0on our most recent Attitude & Interest Survey, residents gave us a 93.7% Satisfaction Rating.1 In short, we\u2019re making\u00a0life fun!<\/p>\n
In fact, at HE Parks, we consider fun to be serious business. That\u2019s because we know that what we\u00a0do is not only fun, but it has a great fi nancial impact on our community, too. In 2015 HE Parks\u00a0employed 776 people and paid $6.7 million in wages to residents in Hoffman Estates and
\nsurrounding communities. These are the folks who are hard at\u00a0work making sure that you have a great experience each\u00a0time you visit our facilities, take your kids to a soccer game or\u00a0summer camp, enjoy some downtime at your neighborhood\u00a0park, get your daily workout or cool off at Seascape.
\nThroughout our state, park districts and related jobs\u00a0employed 96,317; second only to California. Illinois park\u00a0districts affected the state\u2019s economy with nearly $13 billion\u00a0in economic activity and more than\u00a0$5 billion paid in labor wages.2<\/p>\n
Nationally, America\u2019s public park agencies\u00a0generated nearly $140 billion in economic\u00a0activity and supported almost 1 million jobs\u00a0from operations and capital spending alone\u00a0in 2013.<\/p>\n
Benefits of Park Lands
\nIn recent research, the amount of physical\u00a0activity demonstrated by study participants\u00a0directly related to safe\/accessible park acreage
\n(Cohen et al., 2010).3<\/p>\n
Young adults are two or three times more\u00a0physically active when parks or recreation facilities\u00a0are accessible compared with young adults that do not have the same\u00a0opportunity (letsmove.gov).3<\/p>\n
Exposure to nature can result in the improvement of attention disorders in\u00a0children. (Frumkin, 2001).3
\nThe U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention has found that recreation\u00a0and access to nature have positive effects on PTSD, diabetes, heart disease,\u00a0ADHD and depression.3<\/p>\n
Closer to home :\u00a0HE Parks has more than 828 acres of accessible\u00a0park land.
\n1 Attitude and Interest Survey,
\n2014 Comprehensive Master Plan heparks.org
\n2 Source Economic Impact Study, National Recreation
\n& Parks Association, 2013 nrpa.org
\n3 Illinois Parks and Recreation Association,
\n2016 ilipra.org<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Green spaces, recreational programs and fun family events create positive effects in our community. Our residents\u00a0recognize this, as more than 50% of residents have participated in our programs; well above […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_ecp_custom_2":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heparks.org\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heparks.org\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heparks.org\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heparks.org\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heparks.org\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.heparks.org\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16748,"href":"https:\/\/www.heparks.org\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions\/16748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heparks.org\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heparks.org\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heparks.org\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}