There’s big news for Horizon West Regional Park and the residents who have spent years helping care for it.
Friends of Horizon West Regional Park has officially been approved to participate in Orange County Parks & Recreation’s Adopt-A-Park program, creating a formal pathway for local volunteers to help care for, maintain and protect one of Horizon West’s most important community spaces.
Jerry Blank, a Horizon West resident and one of the driving forces behind Friends of Horizon West Regional Park, confirmed the approval directly with Horizon West Happenings.
But to understand why this news matters, you first have to meet the people who have already been showing up for the park.
Meet Friends of Horizon West Regional Park
Friends of Horizon West Regional Park is a resident-led volunteer group dedicated to supporting the park, with a particular focus on its natural areas, trails, native vegetation and wildlife.
Long before many of the amenities residents enjoy today were completed, volunteers were spending their time maintaining the park’s unpaved trails, removing invasive plants and vines, identifying native vegetation, monitoring gopher tortoise burrows and helping others discover the natural side of the park.
Now, the group’s approval for Orange County’s Adopt-A-Park program takes that community stewardship one step further.
HWRP, though designed as a gathering place for the Horizon West community, also has many acres of natural space. It will continue to be a wildlife habitat for the foreseeable future.
Jerry realized that his vision would require lots of volunteer teamwork, just as the Oakland Nature Preserve does. He gathered the current “Friends of Horizon West Regional Park” team by putting out a “Call to Action” post on the Horizon West Happenings Community Facebook group in March 2026.
Besides Jerry, the team members are Carie Ware, Rick Eiland, and Melissa and Jesse Valenzuela. The five “Friends of Horizon West Regional Park” applied to join the county’s Adopt-a-Park program in June 2026, and the Parks Advisory Board approved their application two months later.
What Is the Adopt-A-Park Program?
Orange County Parks & Recreation’s Adopt-A-Park program gives residents, organizations and groups an opportunity to formally support a specific county park through ongoing volunteer service.
Depending on the needs of the park, volunteers may assist with litter removal, light landscaping, trail maintenance and other projects designed to enhance and care for the space.
For Friends of Horizon West Regional Park, becoming part of the program means the group can continue its volunteer efforts through a more formal relationship with Orange County Parks & Recreation.
For Horizon West, it means something even bigger: our community now has an organized way to play a hands-on role in caring for the park as it continues to grow.
Meet Jerry Blank
If you’ve spent time exploring the natural trails at Horizon West Regional Park, you may have already encountered some of Jerry Blank’s work without realizing it.
Jerry moved to Horizon West in 2021 and soon discovered the regional park. What started as an appreciation for the space grew into years of volunteering, trail maintenance, mapping, wildlife documentation and advocacy for the park’s natural environment.
One of Jerry’s most recognizable contributions is his detailed map of Horizon West Regional Park, which shows visitors their exact position in the park if they’re signed into Google Maps on their phone. View the map and trail guide at www.hwrp.info/trails.
The map helps residents navigate the park’s extensive natural trail system while also documenting existing and planned park features. Jerry’s work has also helped document the locations of nearly 200 active gopher tortoise burrows throughout the property.
Jerry first contacted the manager of Orange County Parks and Recreation in July 2022, to share an early version of the park trail map. Since then, he’s shared reports of littering/dumping incidents, hurricane damage, and trail hazards—and began his volunteer efforts to keep the park’s trails cleared of litter, fallen limbs, and invasive vines.
His work is a reminder that some of the biggest contributions to a community happen quietly: one trail cleared, one burrow documented and one Saturday morning spent volunteering at a time.
What Does This Mean for Horizon West?
Horizon West Regional Park is continuing to transform.
Orange County has invested millions of dollars into creating a regional destination with recreational amenities, gathering spaces, trails and additional improvements planned for the future.
But the park is also home to something that existed long before those amenities: natural Florida.
Its trails wind through different ecosystems filled with native plants and wildlife, including a significant gopher tortoise population. Preserving and caring for those spaces becomes increasingly important as the developed portions of the park continue to expand.
That is what makes this Adopt-A-Park approval so meaningful.
Orange County will continue to own, operate and develop Horizon West Regional Park. Friends of Horizon West Regional Park and its volunteers now have a formal avenue to work alongside the county and contribute their own time toward caring for the community space they love.
It is community stewardship in its simplest form: residents choosing to show up and take care of the place they call home.
Want to Get Involved?
The best part? You can be part of it.
Friends of Horizon West Regional Park welcomes residents interested in volunteering, exploring the park’s natural areas and helping care for its trails and environment.
Whether you’ve called Horizon West home for years or recently joined the community, this is an opportunity to get outside, meet your neighbors and make a tangible difference in a park that belongs to all of us.
Learn more about Friends of Horizon West Regional Park, explore the trail map and find information about volunteering at hwrp.info.
Because Horizon West Regional Park isn’t just being built for our community. With people like Jerry Blank and the Friends of Horizon West Regional Park stepping up to care for it, it’s being shaped by our community, too.
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