Parks & Recreation

About the Parks & Recreation Committee

The Parks and Recreation Committee advises the Board of Supervisors on the development and maintenance of East Brandywine Township's three park sites: the Community Park on Dilworth Road; Spatola Park on Raleigh Drive, and Hopewell Field on Township Road. The volunteers of this committee also host events and fund-raisers for park improvements.  A fourth park, Bondsville Mill Park, opened to the public in 2015 and its development is being overseen by a separate committee.

Opportunities for active recreation, in the form of youth leagues for team sports, are created and managed by the East Brandywine Youth Association (EBYA) an independent non-profit organization that enjoys priority access to, and shares in the maintenance of, the Township's athletic fields.

East Brandywine is one of eight municipal members that, along with the Downingtown Area School District, comprise the Downingtown Area Recreation
 Consortium (DARC)
. DARC is a regional municipal recreation organization that

offers recreation, adult education, and youth learning opportunities. The Township contributes financially to the administrative and program costs; user fees also are charged to cover operating costs of DARC's various programs.

History

The East Brandywine Parks and Recreation board was created in 1990.

“The Brown family, who owned a farm on Dilworth Road, approached the Township and asked if the community would like to buy some of the land,” recalls Jimm Worrell, a founding member of the Board. “The Township agreed to buy 10 acres.” The agreement said that it could later buy more.  This was the beginning of today’s Community Park, which extended to today’s 60-plus acres in two further steps.

At the time, the Township already owned two parks: Spatola Park on Raleigh Drive, and Hopewell Field on Township Road. With the addition of a third park, the Township decided it needed a separate body to oversee all three, and so the Park & Recreation Board came into being with an initial eight members.