Who we Are

Cedar Lake Park is what it is today because people chose to care for it — and to keep caring for it over time.

A community-based organization

The Cedar Lake Park Association is part of that ongoing effort: a community-based organization working to protect, restore, and sustain this landscape for everyone who uses and values it.

Formed through a citizen effort to protect Cedar Lake Park, the Association continues as a steward, advocate, and partner — helping to ensure that this landscape remains ecologically healthy, publicly accessible, and shaped by the people who care for it. Over time, this work has come to reflect a consistent set of values: stewardship, public voice, respect for natural systems, and long-term thinking.

Guided change

Land use is always changing. What distinguishes Cedar Lake is that change has been guided. Over decades, the Association and its partners have helped shift this landscape from industrial use toward an interconnected ecological system — one that offers both environmental function and a rare urban experience of solitude, respite, and connection, while remaining linked to the Chain of Lakes, the Mississippi River, downtown, and the surrounding neighborhoods.

Built through collaboration

This work has been built through collaboration — with the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, the Minneapolis Department of Public Works, neighborhood organizations, and many others — and sustained through planning, restoration, and thousands of volunteer hours each year. It is also reflected in the integration of infrastructure and landscape, where trails, transit, and ecological systems are shaped to coexist.

What distinguishes Cedar Lake is that change has been guided.

Shaping how parks are made

Less visible, but equally important, is the influence on how parks are made. Decades ago, during the early visioning of Cedar Lake Park, the Association and its partners helped advance an approach that placed public input at the center of planning. That approach has since evolved into what is now formally embedded within the Park Board as the Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) process, ensuring that community voices continue to help shape park projects across Minneapolis.

A consistent way of working

Through all of this, a consistent way of working has guided the effort: create a vision, define it clearly, protect what matters, communicate widely, invite participation, build consensus, and sustain the work over time. These principles are visible in places like the School Forest, in restoration efforts across the park, and in relationships that extend outward to organizations such as the Loppet Foundation and to the many individuals and groups who contribute their time and care.

Cedar Lake Park Association is part of a larger, living system of stewardship — helping to connect people, sustain ecological health, and carry forward the work that began here.

And that is who we are.