Husband and wife, Dave Ferraro and Veronica Santee, of Franklin took an afternoon walk through the prairie at Jennings Environmental Education Center in July. EAGLE FILE PHOTO

Attendance at parks and outdoor spaces boomed last summer, when many indoor spaces and other activities were canceled because of COVID-19.

With social distancing guidelines widely eased this summer, parks departments were able to hold more scheduled activities than last year, which appears to have attracted an audience.

“Our attendance was lower than it was last year, but not by much,” said Wilbur Taylor, park manager of Jennings Environmental Education Center. “Some months we had two percent more attendance, some we had five percent less, it was right around stable overall.”

In comparison

According to Taylor, Jennings shifted its focus in 2020 to continue being accessible while also following COVID-19 mitigation guidelines. Self-guided tours of the prairie will likely be a permanent fixture because of their popularity in 2020, Taylor said.

“We did a lot of self-exploration days and we published self-guided tour books people could use that were very well received,” he said. “Those were new last year and we expanded on them this year.”

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