Friends of Percheron Park Get Ball Rolling

Fundraising for Percheron Park has only recently begun in earnest, and the group behind the project has already received commitments for $15,000.

The Friends of Percheron Park became incorporated earlier this year and were recently certified as a 501(c)3 nonprofit (thanks to pro bono work from a local attorney), said group president Kathy Logue. The group has its own website now as well, which offers potential donors an easy route to make contributions online.

“It’s pulling together,” Logue said of the group’s fundraising efforts. “Without even sending out mailers we’ve already got a couple commitments.”

She said a resident pledged a $10,000 donation for the Percheron horse statue that’s going to be placed inside the pocket park and the Moorestown Business Association has pledged a $5,000 contribution for a park bench.

While $15,000 is nothing to scoff at, the Friends are still a long way away from their ultimate goal of funding the approximately $195,000 project—roughly $90,000 of which is solely for the horse—through private donations.

Logue said they’re in the process of preparing mailers to send out across town, and after that they’ll begin the ground game, “talking to folks and trying to drum up support.”

Margo Foster, one of the founding members of the Friends of Percheron Park, is credited with getting the ball rolling several years ago. Foster recalled that in the summer of 2006, a committee formed with the goal of “perking up” Main Street and solicited input from residents.

At the time, Foster remembered reading about how early Moorestown resident Edward Harris, who lived in what is now the Historical Society headquarters on High Street (right across the street from the proposed pocket park), brought the first Percheron horse to the United States—and more specifically, Moorestown—from Europe.

Foster suggested Moorestown should have a Percheron statue commemorating Moorestown’s place in history, but then the question became where to put it, she said. Coincidentally, the town manager told her the township was planning on purchasing the property at 1 High Street—at the time Ward’s Automotive—and voila.

“I thought, ‘Aha,’ and the two ideas came together,” she said. “I had the idea, but I didn’t know how to make it happen.”

Fortunately, Foster had friends, friends like Logue and Gina Zegel, who could help.

The Friends envision the park as a “welcoming spot in the town center that creates a drawing card for merchants,” said Logue, “which will hopefully inspire a revitalization of Main Street.”

Logue also noted that pocket parks are supported by the township’s master plan.

In addition to the Percheron statue—which Logue said they’re in the process of finding a sculptor to create—the project entails the installation of a stamped concrete surface, benches, a seat wall and a historical marker explaining the Percheron horse’s place in Moorestown history.

Remediation of the site—due to the fact that it was formerly a gas station—is expected to take at least another six months, Logue said. Using that timeline, the park could be built by the summer/fall of 2013, with the statue installed in the summer/fall of 2014.

“It’s very exciting,” she said. “Every time I go up to Main Street, I’m thinking, ‘Can you imagine what it will be like?’”

To donate to the project online, visit the Friends of Percheron Park website here, or mail contributions to Friends of Percheron Park, PO Box 153, Moorestown, NJ 08057.