SPOTLIGHT

The T. Boone Pickens Foundation focuses grants to organizations that operate in its core giving categories (see “About TBPF”). The current partner spotlight is the Dallas Arboretum & Botanical Gardens a 66-acre botanical garden located on the southeastern shore of White Rock Lake in Dallas.

The majority of the Arboretum grounds, a series of gardens and fountains with a view of the lake and the downtown Dallas skyline, were once part of a 44-acre estate known as Rancho Encinal, built for geophysicist Everett Lee DeGolyer and his wife Nell. Mrs. DeGolyer's interests included her extensive flower gardens. The DeGolyer Home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since 1976, the DeGolyer estate has formed the largest portion of the Dallas Arboretum & Botanical Gardens. The addition of the adjoining Camp estate increased the size of the grounds to 66 acres. Because the Arboretum is younger than many of the nation's arboreta, there is still considerable room for growth and development of the gardens as well as its research and education efforts.

A $5 million grant from the Pickens Foundation is helping develop part of its Rory Meyers Children's Adventure Garden, a seven-acre expansion aimed at making a profound difference in the science education of local schoolchildren. The gift will underwrite the garden's T. Boone Pickens Pure Energy Learning Center, where children learn about energy with a focus on alternative sources such as wind, solar, and water power.

“I’m thrilled we will be helping a whole new generation understand the alternative energy sources that are the backbone of their future,” Pickens says. “It is even more important that it will be available to all DISD students, which should reinforce the dynamic future these children can have in the energy field.”

The Rory Meyers Children's Adventure Garden will reinforce and enrich national and state science education standards in a manner not possible in a classroom and will provide focused science support to underserved children in the lower performing schools in the Dallas area. Substantial support will also be offered to teachers of science, particularly elementary schoolteachers.

"This Children's Adventure Garden will make a profound difference in the science education of local schoolchildren and give the city of Dallas the most outstanding children's garden in the nation," Arboretum president Mary Brinegar says. “The Pickens Foundation’s generous donation helps open the doors of this wonderful education opportunity to the great young minds of Dallas, as well as visitors from throughout the world.”

The Arboretum is probably most known for Dallas Blooms, a popular annual festival featuring more than 400,000 spring-blooming bulbs, more than 3,000 azaleas and thousands of another annuals and perennials spread throughout the 66-acre garden. The five-week, six-weekend event is the largest outdoor floral festival in the Southwest.

For more information on the Arboretum, visit www.dallasarboretum.org.