Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry John Hanna and John Lasher of the Community Foundation of Warren County present a check for $5,000 to Chapman State Park Environmental Education Specialist Jen Moore and Wes Ramsey of PennSoil RC&D for the park’s Storywalk Project.

For those who are tired of sitting inside using electronics, Chapman State Park will soon have an alternative involving a stroll through nature with a little light reading.

Thanks to the Community Foundation of Warren County, the Storywalk project at the park has all but reached its funding goal.

The project is intended to provide educational materials for youth and adults in a nature setting.

On Thursday, John Hanna and John Lasher of the Community Foundation presented Chapman Environmental Education Specialist Jen Moore and Wes Ramsey of PennSoil RC&D a check for $5,000.

“With this grant from the Community Foundation, we’re probably at 90 percent of our funding goal,” Ramsey said. “It’s a $15,000 project. We’re hoping to raise $11,000 in cash.”

Thursday’s check brought the total to $10,000, he said. “We’re hoping to close it out in another week.”

Cash-on-hand doesn’t have to add up to the full amount. “The park is putting in quite a bit of in-kind service to install the trail,” Ramsey said.

“I was looking for self-guided programs last year because of COVID,” Moore said.

She came across the Storywalk program — a female-owned business based in the United States.

Moore said frames containing pages from the stories will be located about every 80 steps along a half-mile trail on the north side of the lake. “They read it while they’re walking,” she said.

“Where it’s located, people can get to it all year long,” she said. “It’s handicapped accessible. It’s next to a bathroom and parking. There’s a picnic table at the half-way point and they end up where they start.”

“I’m hoping after Labor Day, people can get out there and read the stories,” Moore said.

The focus of the stories will be watersheds and stewardship.

The first story could be “Trout Grow on Trees.”

As the weather turns, Moore hopes to swap in a story on maple sugaring. “This year we tapped maple trees,” she said.

The titles will rotate and Moore expects to have nine or more by the time the Storywalk opens.

“I’ll switch out stories every couple months,” she said.