Dog Park Group Close to Fundraising Goal

When the long-awaited Doylestown Dog Park opens, hopefully this fall, few pups will be happier than Patches.

After all, his human, Kelcey Meadows-Lucas, had promised him a great big surprise for his birthday.

“Two years ago, we promised Patches that we’d have his 10th birthday party at the dog park,” Meadows-Lucas said Thursday. “We joke around that we’ll just tell him his birthday is in October.”

That birthday wish is close to coming true.

The Friends of the Doylestown Dog Park have raised about $130,000 in cash and in-kind donations to build the off-leash pup park. Set for an expansive space at Doylestown Township’s Turk III Park, the park will include separate areas for small dogs and large dogs to run and play off-leash. The group estimates it needs about $150,000 to finish the whole project.

The project is on pace to break ground this fall, hopefully in October, Kathy Brown, of the Friends of the Doylestown Dog Park, said Thursday.

Two years worth of planning, rallying and fundraising have gone into making the dog park a reality. Meadows-Lucas, the group’s fundraising chair, said Thursday that the response from the community has been gratifying.

“It’s just been incredible,” she said. “There’s so many people here who love dogs and want to bring our dogs together to socialize. It’s a real community effort.”

Meanwhile, park supporters still are looking for in-kind donations of services for concrete, water lines and electrical wiring. Anyone who may be able to help is invited to email the group at doylestowndogpark@gmail.com.

“We have enough to start building, but we’re not done yet,” Meadows-Lucas said, adding that the group also needs to build up a fund to maintain the park for two years.

While the fundraising continues, the group made the decision to bow out of a national contest sponsored by PetSafe. Bark for Your Park will award $100,000 to the winning city to build a dog park.

But the Doylestown group was worried about competition from the larger cities in the popular-vote contest. In addition, the group already was close to its fundraising goal.

“We knew we probably could raise the money here,” Meadows-Lucas said. “Plus it was a lot of time and energy to invest into something we might not have won.”

Instead, they're throwing their weight behind Allentown, a contest finalist, to encourage voting for the nearby town.

As for Patches, he turned 10 in June, Meadows-Lucas said.

She hopes to be one of the first one humans throwing a dog birthday party for him at the new Doylestown Dog Park.