Philadelphia is home to many beautiful and expansive parks, and outdoor activities in those parks have been able to provide a cathartic and healthy way to spend time during a pandemic. So, Fairmount Park Conservancy and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation are asking Philadelphians to show a little heart towards parks this Saturday, Nov. 14, with a series of socially distanced events.
Love Your Park Fall Service Day will take place in Clark Park, and those who head to West Philly this weekend will be able to partake in activities to help keep the park clean and beautiful along with Mayor Jim Kenney, city officials, and community members. In addition to the happenings at Clark Park, over 70 Park Friends Groups are also hosting volunteer events around the city to prepare their neighborhood parks for the winter.
Established in 1895, Clark Park includes a playground, basketball court, chess tables, and more than 300 trees across nine acres. The park’s boundaries are Baltimore Avenue, Woodland Avenue, 43rd and 45th streets. Thanks to the Friends of Clark Park, the park offers volunteer opportunities, a youth soccer league, and many ways for the community to get engaged. This year’s fall cleanup day will include tree planting, leaf collection for compost, garden bed sprucing, and trash and litter cleanup.
Those who are interested in participating can sign up and find more information online but should note that all events will be capped at 25 total participants and will follow COVID-19 health protocols per Philadelphia’s Department of Public Health. All participants are required to wear masks throughout the entirety of the programs happening this Saturday.
Love Your Park is a joint program of Fairmount Park Conservancy and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and operates in collaboration with more than 100 park volunteer groups across the city. Most recently, Love Your Park hosted a week filled with virtual ways to help celebrate when the pandemic first hit back in the spring. The organization filled the week with acitivites and even partnered with a local brewery to offer a spirited way to give back to the greener parts of the city.
The Love Your Park Pale Ale during Love Your Park @ Home typically was sold exclusively at the traveling community beer garden Parks on Tap (another partnership of Fairmount Park Conservancy, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation and FCM Hospitality), but this year, Philadelphians also could get their hands on the brew through the beer delivery service Biermi.com. This beer is not only tasty, it also gives back to the community with a portion of the proceeds benefitting Philly’s parks.
To help support Philly parks in other ways, Philadelphians can also purchase a variety of T-shirts or a poster for $20 at widerawake.com/love-your-park. Those with a printer can also download the special Love Your Park screen print online as well for a cost. Half of the proceeds raised will go directly to support the Love Your Park program.
Those interested can also donate themselves to help keep Philly’s parks beautiful and functioning, so when the day comes, we can all enjoy the spaces together again. According to the release, donations to the Fairmount Park Conservancy will go to support its mission to bring parks to life, by improving and stewarding Philadelphia’s parks, enhancing their historic and cultural assets, and supporting the communities they serve. Donations can be made through myphillypark.org.
For more information visit, loveyourpark.org
