Jud Fisher Remarks at Kitselman Trailhead Convening

On October 13, 2020, Ball Brothers Foundation partnered with the Cardinal Greenway to host a convening at the new Kitselman Trailhead on the city of Muncie’s eastside.

The purpose of the convening was three-fold. We convened major funders and community leaders to:

• visually see and experience first-hand the progress made on the Kitselman Trailhead to date

•   convey the vision for the trailhead and describe the impact that the trailhead is already having

• provide a clear understanding of the next phase of the project, dollars that need to be raised, and deadlines for match

Following are BBF President and COO Jud’s Fisher’s prepared remarks:

Thanks everyone for being here this morning. As we’re in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, I appreciate everyone wearing your masks and keeping them on during today’s meeting—we want to be as careful as we can even though we’re outside. It’s great to see you all here today in person. It feels like it’s been a long time since we have had the opportunity to do something like this….and in such a beautiful setting.

I wanted to start today with a quick story. If you look just across St. Rt. 32 here, you can see the last standing building from Indiana Steel and Wire. In May of 2015, many of us met inside that little building. We had folding chairs and a projector. Outside were a rough concrete pad and some dilapidated buildings.

An award-winning landscape architect and designer named David Rubin was there. He shared an early vision for urban renewal—for transforming a rough patch of abandoned industrial wasteland into green space. He walked us through ideas for how bicycles and pedestrians could safely traverse the river and this dangerous state highway. And that vision was built on decades of work done by people like Marj Ziegler, John Craddock and the team at Community Enhancement Projects, and others.  

Fast forward to today, and it’s remarkable what has been accomplished. Both the Edmund F. & Virginia B. Ball Foundation and BBF have been early supporters of this project.

Ball Brothers Foundation has a long history of investment in this area of the city—it’s part of a decades-long commitment to revitalization in neighborhoods across the east side of Muncie. Further, the Ball family has a nearly century-long history of concern and support for projects along the White River, something that was near and dear to each branch of the family.

Earlier this summer, BBF held one of our weekly staff meetings here. Members of our Ball Brothers Foundation staff have spent a lot of time with their families here over the past months. It has been exciting for us to see the ways that residents and visitors are using this space: cyclists, parents with small children who love to run the steps and hills, walkers, and many kayakers and anglers fishing.

In our conversations with Angie and the team at the Cardinal Greenway, we offered to help host today’s convening to ensure that other local funders and community leaders would have the opportunity to come out to see what has been accomplished to date. To walk the trails—and the bridge. And to hear about the next phase of the project.

Angie, Phil, Marta Moody, John Craddock and their team have done a masterful job—second to none—at leveraging funding and bringing tremendous federal and state resources to make what you see today possible. Rick Ziegler and the Ziegler Foundation have played a vital role.

And we’re getting really close to crossing the finish line, but there’s still money to be raised and work to be done on a local level. I know that the BBF team is excited to learn more and we hope you are too. Thanks for joining us today…I’ll turn it over now to Angie Pool.