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Highlights from Love Your Park Fall Weekend 2024

by Fairmount Park Conservancy on November 13, 2024

Philadelphia’s civic spirit shone bright during this year’s Love Your Park Fall Weekend! From November 8 -10, over 1,760 park volunteers showed up at their local park to remove trash, rake leaves, plant bulbs and trees, and spend time with their neighbors.

Launched in 2012, Love Your Park takes place in the spring and fall as a city-wide cleanup and celebration of public parks throughout Philadelphia. In the fall, volunteers focus on preparing their parks for winter by planting bulbs that flower in the spring, clearing out organic debris and trash to ensure that winter stormwater drains properly, and collecting fallen leaves that the City converts into free compost.

106 Park Friends groups organized 110 events for this year’s weekend of service. The Park Friends network has more than 140 groups in neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia, who work with Fairmount Park Conservancy and Philadelphia Parks & Recreation year-round to ensure that Philadelphia parks are clean, welcoming, and beautiful shared spaces.

The weekend’s signature project was held at Cliveden Park in Germantown. More than 100 volunteers and PowerCorpsPHL corps members joined Fairmount Park Conservancy, Parks & Rec, and Friends of Cliveden Park. Event sponsors PECO and Weavers Way participated in the volunteer event, which concluded with remarks from City of Philadelphia’s Director of Clean and Green Initiatives Carlton Williams, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Commissioner Susan Slawson, Fairmount Park Conservancy Chief of Staff Kevin Roche, Councilmembers Cindy Bass and Nicolas O’Rourke, and Friends of Cliveden Park member Chris Moore.

“We have over 10,000 acres of parkland, over 400 neighborhood parks, and over 180 miles of trails. It takes a lot of work and people to take care of these vital public spaces That’s why Love Your Park, and that’s why you, are so critical every day,” said Parks & Rec Commissioner Susan Slawson to the volunteers at Cliveden Park.

“We do this so that future generations can have a place to play, grow up, and enjoy our environment,” said Director of Clean and Green Initiatives Carlton Williams. “Statistics show that violence goes down in neighborhoods when people come together and get involved in their neighborhood communities. That is our mission for the City of Philadelphia in wanting to be the safest, cleanest, greenest big city in the nation – because it’s all correlated.”

“Your investment to make sure that this park looks beautiful, to give it some care and love, is investment in the formation of our youth,” said Councilmember Nicolas  O’Rourke.

“You make it happen,” added Councilmember Cindy Bass, reflecting on the work involved in maintain the city’s parks. “We can put it together, but we can’t execute without our volunteers and each and every one of you. Thank you for being here and thank you for your hard work.”

“Look at what you did, look around. We have over 500 bags of leaves,” said Friends of Cliveden President Chris Moore. “Giving back to the community is so important. You know how they say it: we all we got? We all we got. Thank you so much, we appreciate you.”

Citywide, over 1,760 volunteers participated in Love Your Park Fall Weekend, removing 608 bags of trash, planting 4,600 bulbs and 289 trees, and collecting over 40 tons (80,000 lbs!) of leaves from parks.

Thank you to all the volunteers who participated in Love Your Park Fall Weekend! Check out some photo highlights below:

 

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Love Your Park is made possible thanks to the support of TD Bank, PECO, Weavers Way Co-op, Arbor Day Foundation, and Truist Charitable Fund.

Photography by Steve Weinik .

To get involved with your neighborhood park, please visit loveyourpark.org.