WHEREAS, since 1985, the United States has celebrated Parks and Recreation Month to promote building strong, healthy and resilient communities through the power of parks and recreation, and to recognize the more than 160,000 full-time parks and recreation professionals and the hundreds of thousands of part-time and seasonal workers and volunteers who maintain our country's parks; and

WHEREAS, Parks and Recreation promotes physical, emotional, and mental health and wellness through organized fitness, play, and activity, supporting human development and endless learning opportunities that foster social, intellectual, physical and emotional growth in people of all ages and abilities; and

WHEREAS, Parks and Recreation supports the economic vitality of communities by providing high-quality jobs, affordable childcare, and promoting community revitalization; and

WHEREAS, Parks and Recreation creates memorable experiences through engaging programs, dynamic events, and new learning opportunities designed to keep families active; and

WHEREAS, Parks and Recreation fosters social cohesiveness in communities by celebrating diversity, providing spaces to come together peacefully, modeling compassion, promoting social equity, connecting social networks, and ensuring all people have access to its benefits; and

WHEREAS, Parks and Recreation strengthens community identity by providing facilities, services, and safe spaces that reflect and celebrate community character, heritage, culture, history, aesthetics and landscape; and

WHEREAS, Parks and Recreation sustains and stewards our natural resources by protecting habitats and open spaces, connecting people to nature, and promoting the ecological function of parkland; and

WHEREAS, Parks and Recreation supports safe, vibrant, attractive communities that make improve the lives of residents through positive experiences offered in their recreational opportunities;

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that I, Janet T. Mills, Governor of the great state of Maine, do hereby designate July 2022 as 

Parks and Recreation Month

in Maine, and I urge all citizens to recognize the Recreation and Parks staff, agencies, organizations, and volunteers across our state who are doing the hard work of maintaining local parks and recreation facilities across our State for all to enjoy.

In testimony whereof, I have caused the Great Seal of the State to be hereunto affixed GIVEN under my hand at Augusta this twenty-eighth day of June Two Thousand Twenty-Two