Sebastopol Bequest to transform the West county trail

In 2019, for the first time in our history, the Parks Foundation received a donation of property to sell and benefit Regional Parks.

As a young couple in the 1970s, Victoria White Hand and Skip Hand lived in Berkeley, but they longed to come to Sonoma County. "We wanted to be dirt farmers," Victoria explained. Eventually they purchased a charming little farmhouse in Sebastopol where they raised chickens, ducks, geese, sheep and all kinds of produce.

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Skip and Victoria lived in their quaint farmhouse for 40 years. When the time came to think about their legacy, they looked with fondness at their property in rural Sebastopol and thought of how it reminded them of a park. As Skip and Victoria wrote their trust, they decided they wanted their property to benefit Sonoma County Regional Parks.

​In August 2017, Skip passed away. The next year, Victoria's trust officer, Andriy Lesyshyn of Exchange Bank's Trust & Investment Management Department, reached out to our nonprofit Parks Foundation to fulfill Skip's wishes.

The property sits less than a mile from Occidental Road, in a neighborhood where the West County Trail is simply a bicycle lane on the road's shoulder. Currently, cyclists and pedestrians must carefully share a space with cars passing at 50 mph.

In the coming years, the gift from the White-Hand Family Trust will be combined with other funding, making it possible to construct a safe, 8-foot-wide extension of the West County Trail from Highway 116 to Atascadero Creek. Because of Skip and Victoria's foresight, their property has become a transformational gift that will benefit neighbors and the community at large for generations to come.

If you would like to discuss a potential legacy gift to the Parks Foundation, please reach out to Executive Director Melissa Kelley at 707-565-1830 or melissa.kelley@sonoma-county.org.