Abbey Nature Preserve Wins $500,000 Trailhead Grant

The state funded the Scotts Hill trailhead at the maximum PARTF award, and now the county has to match it. We read the grant paperwork, the April 7 commissioners minutes and the 77-page adopted budget to work out what Pender County still has to put up, and what the plan actually includes.

The State of North Carolina put $500,000 into the Abbey Nature Preserve Trailhead project on September 3, which is the most the state will give to any single park project. Because PARTF grants are matched dollar for dollar, Pender County now has to find the same amount, and our review of the County’s paperwork from the spring suggests it has not found all of it, yet.

Zach White, the county’s parks and recreation director, told the Pender County Parks and Recreation Advisory Board in a written staff report back in March that “to date, $335,998 has been approved and allocated for the project,” which leaves roughly $164,000 between the county’s budget and the “match” the award now requires.

None of that makes the grant shaky, and when commissioners voted back on April 7 to send the application in, the minutes captured White telling them the item “was to move forward with the grant application and not a request for money.” We interpreted that as, the trailhead is funded without being fully paid for, and no public document we found says where the balance for the match will come from.

Fast Facts

Located on Two County Lines

Abbey Nature Preserve is in Scotts Hill, behind Poplar Grove Plantation and close enough to the New Hanover line that its postal address is technically in Wilmington. The project page puts both the preserve and the future trailhead at 90 Heart Pine Avenue, Wilmington, NC 28411, while an older county recreation portal still lists 1035 Scotts Hill Loop Road.

It remains a Pender County park built with Pender County money, and the advisory board that recommended the grant meets up in Hampstead at the county annex. Scotts Hill is also where the Blake Farm development, a residential development consisting of more than 3,300 planned units, has already begun to grow.

What the New Grant Buys

The county’s September 4 announcement lists a nature-themed playground, a picnic shelter, restrooms, educational signage and native landscaping, along with a connector trail running from the new parking area into the preserve’s existing natural-surface trails.

Our review of the project page adds a wildflower meadow and on-site parking to that.

The figures circulating have occasionally been reported wrong, sometimes by a factor of ten. One outlet previously put the award at $50,000 and described that as the program ceiling, when the state’s own award table shows $500,000 which is indeed the state’s maximum. That difference is what pays for the signage, the playground and the permanent restrooms.

For the county’s other trail work, see the East Coast Greenway route through Pender County.

The New Concept Plan Includes a Dog Park

We pulled the March 17 advisory board agenda packet, and it carries a labeled site plan that none of the other media coverage of the award mentions.

Alongside the pavilion, the playground and the wildflower meadow, the drawing marks a dog park, a paved main multi-use path, a stormwater pond, a secured park entry and turnaround, and a parking lot at roughly 64 spaces. A note beside the playground asks for recycled wood climbing structures, slides built into the hills, and tunnels made from donated piping.

All of that is a concept, drawn in March, before the application had even gone to the state, and the county has not published an approved design since.

What Residents Were Asked, and When

The county ran an open-house input session in the preserve parking lot on March 19, 2026, from 4 to 6pm, and followed it with a pop-up session at a nearby business on March 25. Its February notice said the feedback would guide planning and strengthen applications to both PARTF and the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The votes ran ahead of the sessions. The advisory board approved submitting the PARTF application on March 17, two days before the first open house, and commissioners followed on April 7, unanimously, on a motion from Vice Chairman Brad George.

How the Land Got Here

The trail predates the county’s involvement by about three centuries. Pender County’s own park page describes it as a path “traversed for over three centuries by the enslaved community of Poplar Grove,” recognized today as part of the Gullah Geechee National Heritage Corridor, and notes that the preserve is dedicated to the memory of Margaret Abbey Foy Moore.

The conservation history is far more recent.

The NC Coastal Land Trust and members of the Foy family started working to protect the property in 2005, and in 2007, using Clean Water Management Trust Fund money, the Land Trust bought a conservation agreement on about 31 acres while the Foy Limited Partnership donated an agreement on another 31. The Foys designed and built the trail system themselves, through the woods and across the historic dam and pond, and the Land Trust still enforces the easements.

The family later sold the larger property to Mungo Homes, and Pender County leased the 62 acres from the builder starting in 2022.

In August 2025 Mungo Homes donated the preserve outright, along with the 7.59-acre entrance parcel that is now the trailhead site.

Items That are Still Open

The match: the adopted budget that we reviewed does not show where all of it originates.

The county lists the trailhead among its capital projects, alongside the new Hampstead library and the Law Enforcement Center, but Abbey Nature Preserve turns up exactly once in the $136.7 million FY 2026-27 budget, in County Manager Colby Sawyer’s message, where he writes that quality-of-life investments such as Hampstead Kiwanis Park and the preserve “continue on a measured basis.”

There is no parks capital appropriation anywhere in the budget ordinance, and the $335,998 the county reported in March does not appear in the document at all. That is not the same as the money being gone, since counties routinely carry capital projects in separate multi-year ordinances that never touch the annual budget, but it does mean the match is invisible in the one document most residents would be most likely to check.

It was not an easy year in which to find another $164,000 either. The same budget absorbs roughly $4.7 million in revenue that supported current services and will not recur, eliminates most program funding for outside agencies in favor of a single $50,000 pool at the board’s discretion, and rebuilds the tax base on the old schedule of values because Senate Bill 889 pushed the county’s 2026 revaluation out by a year.

The next checkpoints are the commissioners’ meetings on September 8 in Burgaw and September 21 at the Hampstead Annex.

The federal application: back in February the county said it was chasing the Land and Water Conservation Fund alongside PARTF, but only the PARTF application shows up in the advisory board and commissioner votes on the public record, and no LWCF award for Pender County has been announced. NC State Parks lists the next LWCF deadline as November 2, 2026 at 5pm, so if the county is still going after it, that is when the paperwork is due.

The timeline: nobody has published a groundbreaking or an opening date, not in the 2025 donation coverage and not in the 2026 award coverage. The county said designs were already underway in August 2025 and a year went by before the money arrived, which is the only guide to pace the record offers. The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board meets next on September 15, 2026 at 6:30pm at the Hampstead Annex, 15060 US 17 in Hampstead, and that agenda is the first place a construction schedule would surface.

The Preserve, Today

Abbey Nature Preserve today is accessible via a gravel lot with portable restrooms. The parking area leads to more than two miles of natural-surface trails through the woods, a wooden boardwalk out over the pond and an overlook deck. Access is free, with pets welcome, but there is no permanent bathroom or shaded shelter area anywhere on the site.

Sources

• NC Governor’s Office – Governor Announces Nearly $10 Million in Parks and Recreation Grants Awards: the September 3, 2026 announcement and the full award table showing Pender County at $500,000, the $500,000 single-project maximum, and the dollar-for-dollar match requirement.
• Pender County – Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Agenda Packet, March 17, 2026: Zach White’s staff report stating $335,998 approved and allocated, and the labeled concept site plan showing the dog park, the paved multi-use path and roughly 64 parking spaces. Retrieved September 6, 2026.
• Pender County – Board of Commissioners Minutes, April 7, 2026: item 9.6, the unanimous vote to submit the application and White’s statement that it was not a request for money. Retrieved September 6, 2026.
• Pender County – Abbey Nature Preserve project page: the 7.59-acre parcel at 90 Heart Pine Avenue, the amenity list including the wildflower meadow, and the March 17 and April 7 approvals.
• Pender County – Pender County Awarded $500,000 Grant to Expand Recreation and Access at Abbey Nature Preserve: the county’s own September 4 announcement and the quotes from Zach White and County Manager Colby W. Sawyer.
• Pender County – Abbey Nature Preserve park page: current amenities including portable restrooms and the overlook deck, the Gullah Geechee National Heritage Corridor description, and the dedication to Margaret Abbey Foy Moore.
• Pender County – Pender County to Host Public Input Session for Abbey Nature Preserve Trailhead Project: the February 26 notice, the March 19 open house at 90 Heart Pine Avenue, and the stated intent to apply to both PARTF and LWCF.
• Pender County – FY 2026-2027 Final Adopted Budget: the $136,688,183 General Fund total, the single reference to Abbey Nature Preserve continuing “on a measured basis,” the absence of any parks capital appropriation in the budget ordinance, the roughly $4.7 million in non-recurring revenue, the elimination of most outside-agency program funding, Senate Bill 889’s one-year delay of the 2026 revaluation values, and the Blake Farm groundbreaking in Scotts Hill. Retrieved September 6, 2026.
• WWAY – Pender County receives $500,000 grant for Abbey Nature Preserve improvements: the September 4 amenity list including educational signage and native landscaping.
• Port City Daily – Pender County awarded $50K to improve Abbey Nature Preserve: the $50,000 figure and the claim that $50,000 is the single-project maximum, both of which the state’s award table contradicts.
• WECT – Abbey Nature Preserve donated to Pender County: the August 2025 donation of the 62 acres and the 7.59-acre parcel by Mungo Homes, the county’s lease dating to 2022, and the statement that designs were already underway.
• NC Coastal Land Trust – Abbey Nature Preserve: the 2005 partnership with the Foy family, the 2007 Clean Water Management Trust Fund purchase and donated easements totaling 62 acres, the Foy-built trail system, and the location behind Poplar Grove Plantation.
• NC State Parks – Land and Water Conservation Fund: the November 2, 2026 application deadline for the next LWCF cycle.
• Pender County – Agendas and Minutes portal: the September 8, September 15 and September 21, 2026 meeting dates and locations.