Love Your Park Week 2025 was a huge success! From May 10 to 18, over 1,300 incredible volunteers took action across Philadelphia to clean up and care for over 100 public parks. Volunteer crews removed trash, leaves, and weeds from the parks, planted trees, flowers and plants, spread mulch, and much more.
Love Your Park is a twice-annual volunteer event organized by partners Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, Fairmount Park Conservancy, and the Park Friends Network. This spring, Carroll Park in West Philadelphia hosted the signature project for Love Your Park Week. More than 100 volunteers joined Fairmount Park Conservancy, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, and the Friends of Carroll Park to prepare the park for the busy spring and summer seasons.
The day concluded with a speaking program featuring Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Commissioner Susan Slawson, Fairmount Park Conservancy Chief of Staff Kevin Roche, State Representative Morgan Cephas, TD Bank Senior Relationship Manager Amy Derstine, Independence Blue Cross Vice President of Community Affairs Lorina Marshall-Blake, and Friends of Carroll Park president Cheri Harrison.
Additional partners joined us at Carroll Park to make this year’s kick-off event extra special. The We Walk PHL Carroll Park group held their regular Saturday walk just before the volunteer activities started, and did a lap on the park’s recently-refurbished walking path. Tiny WPA was on site too, working on a “Neighbors Become Friends” mural designed with the Friends of Carroll Park and funded by Spring Point Partners.
During the entire week, volunteers across Philadelphia rolled up their sleeves and made an incredible impact in their parks, organizing and participating in 105 cleanups citywide. Collectively, volunteers:
- Removed 483 bags of trash
- Planted 32 trees and 77 shrubs
- Planted 1,993 flowers and grasses
- Collected 683 bags of organic matter like leaves and weeds
- Spread 296 cubic yards of mulch and compost
Love Your Park is not just about parks; it’s about the people who enjoy and care about their neighborhood parks, and making connections. Here are some reflections from our volunteers:
“Great team, positive energy, felt like I made a difference in removing litter and contributing to the sustainability of trees and green space in the park.”
“Great turn out! Accomplished lots, leaving the area looking so much better!”
“Great teamwork, lots of work done maintaining and beautifying the park. Loved seeing the progress we’ve made in the park. Good community experience, lots of fun, lots of snacks. People worked and enjoyed it.”
“It was super fun! Snacks and drinks were provided, as well as all tools we might need. I had never gardened before, and was really only planning on picking up trash. The people there were super friendly though, and taught me how to remove weeds and plant new flowers/trees! It was really fun to do, and super rewarding to see all of the new plants. Plus, it made me feel good, and like I was giving back to our community! I’m really excited to do this next year, overall very rewarding and not too complicated work.”
“I really enjoyed getting to know everyone as we beautified the park.”
To all the committed volunteers in Philly who came out to love their park this spring – thank you!
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Love Your Park is made possible with the support of PECO, TD Bank, and Independence Blue Cross.
Photography by Albert Yee.
To get involved with your neighborhood park, please visit loveyourpark.org.
