I'm here with Andrew Kota, director of the Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina.

Andrew, this space is absolutely gorgeous.

How did you acquire it?

- Well, back in 2020, this land was threatened by residential development, and our land trust stepped in and raised funding from state and federal conservation programs, and private funding through local community members, local businesses, supporters of our land trust to purchase this land for a community park and forest.

- Wow.

- The conservancy wanted this park to be a showcase for all of our conservation work and to really engage the community in what we do, our mission of natural resource preservation and conservation, but our also quality of life improvements for the local community through outdoor recreation and connecting people to nature, connecting people to natural spaces, and through that, to each other.

- [Deborah] How big is this park, and what are gonna be some of the features?

- It's a 652-acre park, and it's really a hub for forest stewardship and preservation, for stream restoration and riparian buffer conservation, so water quality preservation, and an outdoor recreation place for people to enjoy mountain biking, hiking, exploring nature over the 11 miles of trails that we have.

- [Deborah] Tell me a little bit about the agricultural aspect of this.

- Over the last year and a half, we spent time and engaged with local agricultural stakeholders to develop a community agriculture plan for this property.

There's about 50 acres of very prime farmland soils down in the bottomlands near Canoe Creek, which is the main water feature through this property.

And we've partnered with the Lee family, which is a local Hmong family, a very successful farming family in this region.

So the Lee family is cultivating a variety of niche crops that they're selling for consumption at farmer's markets and local restaurants, and hopefully will become more widely available in the upcoming months and years.

- [Deborah] Tell me more about how this is gonna be accessible to all communities.

- So the park is open throughout the day.

There's no entrance fee at all.

It's a free resource.

Some of the things that we're hosting on the site are free mountain bike rides for the public to introduce people to the sport, introduce people to the park and the trail system.

We're in the process of developing a sensory orchard and garden pathway close to the entrance of the park so it's easily accessible for young people, for families, for people of all abilities.

Morganton is home to the North Carolina School for the Deaf and the J. Iverson Riddle Developmental Center.

And so these are two populations that we've really focused on providing access to this park and its natural landscape through the sensory orchard and garden that we'll develop in the upcoming few months here.

- [Deborah] Andrew, what's next for the park?

- [Andrew] More trails, more volunteer activities, more community engagement, and just fun and outdoor recreation.

- You'll find Oak Hill Community Park and Forest at 1820 North Carolina Highway 126 in Morganton, and the park is open daily from 5:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. To find out more, check out their website: Foothillsconservancy.org /oakhillpark