As a production electrician, Mike Ward used to create Broadway shows with his team in Manhattan from scratch and saw them through to completion, no matter how challenging the projects were.
Following retirement, he put that same tenacity into building watershed trails in Port Jervis, New York, a small city with limited financial means on the eastern bank of the Delaware River.
Over the past seven years, Ward and a group of volunteers of Port Jervis Outdoor Club paved and marked 50 miles of trails in the watershed, an undertaking that cost almost zero taxpayer money.
A watershed trail in Port Jervis, N.Y., on March 16, 2023. (Cara Ding/The Epoch Times)
They also received private donations to develop the city’s Riverside Park, having built one of the most challenging pump tracks in the tri-state area and about to complete a new disc golf course….