Minnesota Point 50 and the Park Point Community Club held their “Turning Point Summit” to talk about their long-term preservation plan for Minnesota Point. Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert and others involved spoke at the summit.

Known as the Coastal Resilience Action Plan, its goal is to preserve and support the resilience of Park Point for 50 years and beyond. A point of emphasis within it is collaboration, both from organizations and residents (permanent or visitors).

“One of the big things that we are really promoting through MP50 is not only collaboration with our partners and with the city but asking everyone to get to work. When they come down here, they own Park Point too and Minnesota Point. So, even simple things like carry your trash out. Don’t walk through the dunes and disturb the piping clovers,” said Pat Sterner, MP50 chair.

Other parts of the Action Plan include things like old growth forest preservation, dune restoration and preservation, increased infrastructure resilience, and continued public access (i.e. beaches).

The idea for this long-term planning originated more than five years ago.

“In October 2019, there was a very large storm and there was a shelter in place morning where no one could give home or leave Park Point. And it was a crisis. So, we started thinking about what the climate change, what might this look like in the future and through our community of practice and our partners, we learned that there was really no long-term planning taking into consideration all these variables. So, that’s when we decided that we need to start really digging in and making a plan in the future,” said Dawn Buck, President, Park Point Community Club.

The next fundraiser for MP50 and PPCC is the Park Point Art Fair during the last weekend of June.