Colorado Springs Panorama Park Wins Colorado Lottery’s First People’s Choice Starburst Award

Pueblo, Colo. (July 22, 2024) – Launched for the first time this year, the Colorado Lottery Starburst Awards included an additional People’s Choice Starburst Award to offer Lottery proceeds partners, players, and the public a chance to vote on their favorite Starburst Award project. With 1,858 votes out of more than 16,000 votes submitted, the winner of this year’s People’s Choice Starburst Award is Panorama Park in Colorado Springs.

Panorama Park  is a 13.5-acre park that was redesigned in 2022, thanks partly to a $350,000 Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO) planning grant. GOCO’s grant and collaborative planning with RISE|Southeast and Trust for Public Land (TPL) were integral to the park’s redesign, which created more recreation opportunities for this diverse and underserved community. The $8.5 million project is now the largest recreation area near Colorado Springs.

“We were blown away by the overwhelming response to our first People’s Choice Starburst Award,” said Tom Seaver, director of the Colorado Lottery. “Our Starburst Award winners came out in full force to compete for this award, but to me, all of these projects are winners.”

Running June 15 – July 15, the Lottery received more than 500 to nearly 2,000 votes for each of the 13 Starburst Award recipients from this year, and more than 40,000 people visited the website to review the projects in the running. Panorama Park beat out the San Cristobal Island project by just 52 votes. The project with the third highest votes was GOCO’s own RESTORE Colorado initiative, just another 70 votes behind.

This year’s Colorado Lottery Starburst Award winners were provided with a toolkit of materials to help them promote their project, and the Lottery promoted the award opportunity to its players. People could vote for their favorite project once per day and every day for the month-long competition. For each vote, entrants were entered into a contest to win a Lottery prize pack valued at more than $200.

Thirteen projects, representing nearly $9 million, won a Starburst Award this year for their excellence in using Lottery funds. The diverse projects were chosen from across the state based on their creativity, economic and social impact on the community, and goals achieved. Here is the press release announcing this year’s Starburst Award winners. 

Lottery proceeds are distributed statewide through grants distributed by Great Outdoors Colorado (GOCO), the Conservation Trust Fund (CTF), Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW), the Outdoor Equity Fund, and Building Excellent Schools Today (BEST).

About Colorado Lottery:

Since 1983, the Colorado Lottery has returned more than $4 billion to outdoor projects and schools through Great Outdoors Colorado, the Conservation Trust Fund, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, and Building Excellent Schools Today. Proceeds from sales of Colorado Lottery games – Scratch, Powerball, Mega Millions, Colorado Lotto+, Lucky for Life, Cash 5, and Pick 3 – enhance, protect, and improve parks, trails, and open space in Colorado. For more information, visit coloradolottery.com.

SOURCE: Colorado Lottery.