Glencoe Park District: Enriching Lives & Building Community

In our National Gold Medal Finalist video, discover how Glencoe Park District's mission to enrich lives, foster well-being, build community, and create memorable experiences is embedded in everything we do. As a 2026 National Gold Medal Award Finalist, we’re proud to showcase our dedication to long-term planning, stewardship, and creating exceptional opportunities for people of all ages. We believe in putting people first, and our residents believe in us too: 90% hold a favorable view of the District. For over 114 years, our community of 8,700+ has flourished with exceptional parks, programs, and facilities. Guided by our Comprehensive Plan, our historic, intentionally linear parks ensure 97.6% of residents are within a ten-minute walk to green space. The hub of our community is the Takiff Center, an 85,000-square-foot, LEED-designed facility that is much more than a gym. It is a place for ceramics studios, STEAM labs, dance, and drama. The Takiff Center is the heart of our district, an 85,000-square-foot, LEED-designed facility complete with ceramics and art studios, a fitness center, and robust childcare programs. The 5-acre campus fosters deep community engagement with walking paths, a playground, and an apiary. We annually offer over 700 unique programs to keep our community physically and mentally active, with 53% of residents attending annually. To meet the growing needs of working families, we expanded our full-daycare and after-school care programs, increasing capacity by over 30%. We applied this same resourcefulness at the Weinberg Family Recreation Center. Home to the area’s first refrigerated outdoor ice rinks, the facility doesn’t go dormant in spring; it transforms into courts for pickleball and Dekhockey, keeping the space active year-round. Glencoe Beach, our most cherished destination, attracts over 51,000 summer visitors as a hub for swimming, sailing, and lakeside recreation. Through our partnership with 26 area libraries, anyone can borrow a pass, expanding access to Lake Michigan for all. When a historic 1913 Frank Lloyd Wright cottage was slated for demolition, we stepped in, leading the collaborative effort to relocate the structure onto parkland and preserve it as a public museum, at no cost to taxpayers. This commitment to stewardship is seen in our daily work, from using a herd of goats for invasive species control to composting meals from our programs. For us, it is more than just parks and programs. It is a commitment to enriching lives and creating memorable experiences by putting our community first, always.