The two main parts of our project are clean-up and beautification. We have student volunteers and would like additional volunteers to paint, clean-up leaves, and beautify our adopted flower beds.
Leader
Heather Butts
Location
242nd Street and Broadway Bronx, NY 10460
Impact areas
We started this project in August 2010 right after a tornado touched down in the Riverdale, Bronx area of New York. We wanted to give back to the community and do tornado clean-up as well as beautification of the flower beds and other parts of the park. Over the last two years, we have continued to do projects in the park and further beautification projects, including adopting the flower beds at 246th street and painting the underpass near the Major Deegan Parkway. We look forward to working with the park on additional projects.
This is an ongoing project for us. So far the project has run since August 2010; however, we plan for this to go well beyond this year. We are planning a larger community service project on August 11, 2012, and already have a student working on an engineering project. Our project will be one of continued success, mainly focused on getting the students involved and making sure that the students have a sense of responsibility and pride in what they do. Our flower beds continue to be a source of pride for us and the beautification projects that we have done serve to make the park and better, more pleasant space for everyone in the community.
We see this project as a series of smaller projects. Thus, in order to complete the smaller project, we need volunteers, a limited amount of funds for some of our students to be able to travel to the site, and any supplies not generously donated by the Parks Department (such as gloves).
Parks are ever-changing and need constant care in order to be sustained, safe, and a place for people and nature to exist in harmony. This project is important to us for two reasons. First, because it allows our students to participate in a project that has clear results. Students are motivated by metrics - if they see that they is a positive end result, they are eager to participate, and that is what this project does. Secondly, the environmental aspect is that we're able to take care of various parts of the park such as flower beds and underpasses, that need real attention. The Parks Department has an extremely skilled team of individuals; however, having volunteers such as us can help to do projects that are too time consuming for them to achieve. We currently have a student participating in an engineering project - this is very exciting as she is able to get firsthand knowledge of the impact that she can have on the park.