The Forest and the Trees
A 5-Year Grant From the Mysun Charitable Foundation Has Super-Charged Restoration of Kennedy Forest — For the Benefit of Generations of St. Louisans
In fall 2020, the Mysun Charitable Foundation—a family foundation with deep roots in the St. Louis community—granted $1.5 million over five years to seed the ongoing restoration of Forest Park’s Kennedy Forest.
“We’re so thankful to the Mysun Charitable Foundation for supporting our efforts, in partnership with the City of St. Louis, to move forward with our Kennedy Forest Natural Resources Master Plan,” says Shawnell Faber, Forest Park Forever Director of Land Management. “With this gift, we can now restore these areas providing and sustaining a high-quality woodland and forest habitat, reflective of the rich diversity of the forest’s history, more quickly and with more quality and performance than we could before.”
For Sally Sands—daughter of Myron and Sunny Glassberg, for whom the Mysun Foundation is named—the Kennedy Forest project meets the foundation’s most important priorities.
“The project that this grant funds preserves our family legacy and commitment to St. Louis while providing opportunities at the intersection of environment and education,” says Sands, Mysun Foundation board member and a retired educator. “And because Forest Park and Kennedy Forest are open to all regardless of socioeconomic status or race, it supports our strong belief in environmental and racial justice.”
In fact, the complexity of the Kennedy Forest restoration project mirrors the Mysun Foundation’s interlocking goals. Just as the forest is a web of ecosystems that must be carefully restored over time, our St. Louis community consists of webs of interdependent people living together in a shared environment. And with proper care, all its members can thrive together.
“The foundation deeply appreciates that the Park serves the city, welcomes and celebrates diversity, and invites all to enjoy the beauty of nature and its spaces,” Sands adds. “We are proud to have the opportunity to help nourish Kennedy Forest, just as Forest Park nourishes families and builds communities.”
A Forest Plan with Deep Roots
In 2019, Forest Park Forever completed the development of a Forest Park Natural Resources Plan in partnership with the City of St. Louis. Within that comprehensive document was a strategic plan specifically for addressing the long-term restoration needs of 65-acre Kennedy Forest.
“The Forest Park Natural Resources Master Plan challenges us to restore Kennedy Forest, not just take care of what is there,” Faber says. “Our plan includes supporting and enhancing ecosystems, identifying strategies to improve the function of the waterways and developing common goals with other stakeholders.”
The Mysun Charitable Foundation had been supporting Kennedy Forest restoration since 2015, which enabled Forest Park Forever to implement initial tactics to address immediate restoration needs. Through that early support, Forest Park Forever was able to begin the restoration process in the forest and eventually grow to have 20.7 acres under a stage of restoration. This year, with the additional funds of the Mysun Foundation’s multi-year grant, forest park forever staff can add 1.4 unrestored acres into the process while deepening the conservation efforts already underway. Faber notes that the Mysun Foundation’s grant lays the foundation for the future of Kennedy Forest.
“The foundation has been very good at recognizing that forest restoration is a long-term effort,” she explains. “They did not just award a grant and walk away. It is a long-term commitment on their behalf.”
A Family’s Legacy of Conservation
Indeed, the Glassberg family’s connection to Forest Park, St. Louis and the environment has been a long-term commitment in itself. Myron was raised by his uncle, the famous conservationist A. P. Greensfelder. Greensfelder and his wife, Blanche, instilled a love of nature in young Myron.
“He grew up not far from the Park, near Lindell and Big Bend,” says Dr. Richard “Dick” Glassberg, Myron’s son and Sally Sands’ brother. “The Greensfelders taught my dad about conservation, and I’ve been a conservationist my whole life through my dad.”
Myron raised Dick and Sally in University City’s Parkview neighborhood, near the Park.
“My biggest memories of Forest Park are going fishing there with dad,” Glassberg recalls. “I remember catching a lot of two-inch perch, which I’d release back into the lake. Supporting Forest Park is the perfect thing for the foundation to do, in memory of my dad. He just loved Forest Park. It’s a real jewel. Not many cities have a park like that.”
Sunny Glassberg cared deeply about the environment and working conditions of the staff in Forest Park. Over the years, she supported not just iconic destinations but also less glamorous projects that provided essential behind-the-scenes support. She funded the restoration of the World’s Fair Pavilion, several picnic areas, the creation of Turtle Park, the Myron Glassberg Family Maintenance Center at the Saint Louis Zoo. Among other Park programs she funded were the Otter exhibit at the Saint Louis Zoo and the Through the Eyes of a Child: Growing Up Black in St. Louis exhibit at the Missouri Historical Society.
“Mom believed in creating spaces where families could gather with loved ones and build a sense of community,” Sands says.
Sands, however, has a more recent memory of the Park—a tour of Kennedy Forest with Forest Park Forever President and Executive Director Lesley Hoffarth and some fellow Mysun Foundation board members.
“It was very overgrown, but it felt like such a special place—an old forest in the city,” Sands recalls. “It’s rare to have a forest in an urban area, kind of hidden among more visible projects. We saw it as a place that was quality in need of extra support.”
Sands also felt a connection to Kennedy Forest because in their later years, Myron and Sunny lived above the Park on the 16th floor of 801 Skinker.
“My father would look out the window and talk about the importance of parks and open space,” Sally recalls. “He believed in that very deeply.”
Anatomy of a Forest
From their window on Skinker, the Glassbergs’ view was of the western part of the forest. That section includes some of its oldest areas, which date to before Forest Park existed.
“That part still has a large, intact upper canopy forest, but it is now at a stage where a lot of the oaks are starting to disappear, and what is there to replace them is not ideal,” says Amy Witt, Forest Park Forever Park Ecologist. “Though it has stayed a forest, it has seen a lot of disturbance, whether it was 19th-century bridal paths, the 1904 World’s Fair or people sleeping in it in the days before air conditioning.”
However, while this older area may be what most people think of when they hear “Kennedy Forest,” it represents just one part of a much bigger story.
“At its lowest point in the 1960s, Kennedy Forest was only about 26 acres,” Witt explains. “We now have about 65 acres. As acreage was added in the 1970s, people focused on planting trees without focusing on what was growing beneath the trees. As a result, in addition to restoring the older parts of the forest, we also have to restore the newer parts that are now full of invasive species in the ground story.”
Faber breaks down the forest’s acreage further as she explains the impact of the Mysun Foundation’s grant.
“We have about a third of Kennedy Forest in some form of restoration, but before this grant we had few resources to start work in the remaining forest,” Faber explains. “We also needed resources to keep restoration going in areas where work was underway.”
Thanks to the grant, this year Forest Park Forever has started restoration in 1.4 acres of the previously untouched forest. Over the next five years, the grant funds restoration of slightly larger acreages of untouched forest annually. Restoration will then be underway in about half of Kennedy Forest — but that’s just the beginning.
“We now know what the next area is, and we know for the next five years where we’re going and how we will get there, but we can’t forget the restoration that is already taking place,” Faber says.
That’s because, as Witt explains, forest restoration is far from a one-time effort. It is complex, multilayered work that only occurs over time.
“The Mysun Foundation’s grant allows us to pool new acres into the restoration that is already underway,” she says. “It will support our work to continue stewarding all the restoration sites. We are grateful to the foundation for appreciating that investment in forest restoration is an investment in the future, not just today.”
Inside the Restoration Process
Witt says that what many people consider “forest restoration” is only the first year of a continuous process.
“The biggest visual transformation is in that first year of active restoration,” she explains. “That’s when we remove invasive species, like honeysuckle and winter creeper, adjust the canopy layer, start prepping for prescribed burns and begin adding seed and saplings.”
That first year is also when Witt gets the most questions from Park visitors.
“When people grow up in urban areas, they become used to seeing honeysuckle-choked forests, but that’s not what Missouri’s native, oak-hickory forests should look like,” Witt says. “One of this grant’s biggest benefits is that it will help educate people about Missouri’s natural woodlands and make them more accessible to exploration.”
The second year is the start of restoration stewardship. Now, crews’ efforts become more focused on each area as an ecosystem. They can see what seeds and saplings have succeeded, whether more trees need to be removed to provide sunlight, or places where more work is needed to control invasive species.
“I think of it like a compass,” Witt says. “In that first year, we reset the compass in the direction of where we should be going, rather than where we were heading. The second year is about correcting course. The next three years and on are for fine-tuning.”
In years three and four, crews work more at seeding to develop a healthy understory of wildflowers and other plants. Harder-to-obtain species are added, and work continues to keep invasives and aggressive natives at bay.
“We do a lot of disruption in those first two years,” says Witt. “We can now let things settle down and reach equilibrium.”
Finally, in year five, continued stewardship begins as crews add more conservative plants and the restored area becomes ready for a long life as an intact forest.
“That’s where it gets fun,” says Witt. “We can hold regular burns to open up the ground layer, find surprises like plants that take many years to germinate and watch the forest start to become and take care of itself more each year.”
Restoring the Forest, Developing People
However, the Mysun Foundation grant is not just about creating a healthy forest. It has also allowed Forest Park Forever to double its Nature Reserve crew, which has a profound impact on the team.
“Before this grant, our staff was unable to stay with a particular area over time,” Faber says. “They might work in one area one year, but then move to another area the next year. Now, we have enough people to follow areas for multiple years.”
“Adding new staff is one of the best parts of the fund,” agrees Witt. “It allows our team to develop their site knowledge, which is very valuable. People underestimate how much in-depth knowledge of a site can allow an individual and management to grow as they care for that site in a more meaningful way.”
In addition, deeper knowledge makes it easier for Witt to develop metrics for her team and instill accountability.
“We had a lot of things we wanted to do before but couldn’t,” Witt says. “Now, we have clearer deliverables, and our staff is developing even more pride of ownership as they see those deliverables literally come to life. That allows us to be more responsible with the funds the Mysun Foundation has entrusted to us, and to make every dollar more impactful.”
Additional Benefits, for the Benefit of All
Beyond the restoration of Kennedy Forest and expansion of Forest Park Forever’s staff of professional stewards, the Mysun Foundation grant allows Forest Park Forever to make other enhancements to the forest.
“This support is helping us do a lot of really valuable things,” Faber says. “For example, we are now doing GIS mapping that lets us track our progress on invasive species. We have also contracted with the Institute of Botanical Training to conduct time-consuming, detailed floristic quality assessments that will provide a foundation for us to determine future restoration progress and successes.”
And, on a recent tour of the forest, Witt pointed out areas where crews had improved wetland mitigation sites.
“Unbudgeted projects constantly pop up, like clogged wetland controls, holes in control walls or damaged bridges. Now we have more flexibility to complete repairs early in the restoration process,” Witt says. “It’s best to use our active restoration timeperiod to resolve other issues, because we don’t want to disturb these delicate sites any more than we have to.”
For Sally Sands though, the most important benefit of the Mysun Charitable Foundation’s grant may be access.
“To get to know a place, people need to feel safe and comfortable there,” Sands says. “Making Kennedy Forest safer and more accessible makes people more willing to explore, even without leaving the trail if they’d like. That exposure plants seeds in them to take more interest in the environment and issues like climate change that affect us all.
“Because this project will exist in perpetuity, it will reinforce that St. Louis is a special place that cares enough to engage deeply with this historical forest,” she continues. “And maybe that will inspire other partners to support Kennedy Forest, too.”