Friends of Clark Park

We are excited to share that Feet First Philly is launching their latest virtual scavenger hunt in Clark Park this month. Feet First Philly launched these virtual scavenger hunts last fall at the height of the pandemic in parks across the Philly area. These events can be great family-friendly outdoor activities that let you spend time outside and explore some of the city’s best parks. We are proud to be selected as the next location and happy to be a partner with Feet First Philly who also help support our WeWalk PHL group at Clark Park where residents can meet up for casual and fun walks around the park.

To learn more about the Clark Park scavenger hunt, download the BINGO card, explore the park, and find the landmarks on the bingo card. Submit your entry by tagging @FeetFirstPhilly on Twitter, and Facebook, and using the hashtag #VSHClarkPark or email your pictures to feetfirstphilly@cleanair.org. There are prizes for all, but there is a special prize for the first 15 entries, so download the BINGO card NOW and start exploring Clark Park.

Due to poor weather the Love Your Park volunteer day on Saturday May 8th has been postponed until next weekend. If you would like to join please look to sign up at:

https://loveyourpark.givepulse.com/event/230165-Clark-Park-Love-Your-Park-Clean-Up

The entrance to the “B” park at 45^th Street and Chester Avenue got a facelift last month when a team of Friends of Clark Park volunteers transformed 620 square feet filled with invasive species into a native plant habitat. The garden beds (designed by board member Erik Nash) offer a glimpse of our native prairie and edge habitat while giving a slight nod to the formal entrance that once was. The garden now features many different types of plants native to our region such as coneflower, horsemint, little bluestem, prairie dropseed, seersucker sedge, and foam flower (with milkweed and a few others coming soon). These plants will attract pollinating insects like bees and butterflies as well as provide habitat and nesting materials for birds and other animals. Our Garden Committee members and volunteers have been hard at work this spring beautifying every corner of the park. If you would like to help out, please email volunteer@friendsofclarkpark.org. We’re always looking for extra hands to help weed, prune, plant and mulch.

For many of us in the neighborhood, Clark Park has been even more important during the pandemic. The Friends of Clark Park has many goals for improving the park and one of them is trying to keep it clean. Obviously all the extra use during the normally more quiet winter has resulted in lots of extra trash at a time when our Clean and Green initiative is more or less on pause. We’ve always relied on volunteers to supplement trash services provided by the city and provided by FoCP fundraising. Often these cleanup days are initiated by the Friends, but that’s not always the case. In March, Thrive, a residential community in West Philly dedicated to civic engagement organized a clean up that they ran independently at a time of their choice. A part of  Thrive’s volunteer work is the West Philly Community Meet Up & Clean Up. The Meetup group has 74 members and to date since starting in August last year has had 9 events and collected 82 thirteen gallon bags in the local community. Friends of Clark Park is so grateful to be the beneficiary of this organization’s hard work. If you have an organization that would like to contribute to the beauty of Clark Park, feel free to reach out. The Friends can organize materials and tools necessary to run a clean up date. Or, just show up with your own masks, bags, and gloves, no planning required. The Friends and the community at large is always grateful for any volunteer efforts. If showing up the a more formal event is more your speed, consider the clean up for Clark Park on May 8th as part of the larger Love Your Park week initiative.

The sidewalks around the perimeter of Clark Park have long been in disrepair and it has been a major area of focus for Friends of Clark Park for a number of years. With that in mind we are excited to share that, thanks in part to our advocacy, the city has kicked off a project to repair and replace many of the sidewalks throughout the park. This project will replace over 10,000 square feet of sidewalk and is a huge investment in our park and our West Philly community. 

This project could not have become a reality without the great partnership and tireless effort of City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and her office. She has been a tremendous friend of Clark Park and her office was essential in securing the investment to make this project a reality. Work started on the project this week and you will likely see continued sections being replaced over the next few weeks throughout the park. 

We are very proud and thankful to all of those across the Friends who have put countless hours into advocating for this project. We also wanted to say huge thank you to Councilmember Gauthier for her support. Please enjoy the new sidewalk!

Looking for what to do with your Christmas tree as the season winds down? UC Green will be continuing their annual Tree-Cycle tradition in partnership with TreeKen in Clark Park. This great program offers an opportunity to dispose of your tree while helping to support your local community. All trees are mulched and used to aid established trees throughout the park and other local gardens. 

This year the event will be help on January 10th from 9AM – 12PM in the parking lot near University of the Sciences and the basketball court. A $5-$20 donation is requested. 

For people across Philadelphia and beyond 2020 has been a challenging year. This has been true for organizations throughout our West Philly community, but COVID19 has also created challenges for the Friends of Clark Park. 

With the focus on utilizing outdoor spaces Clark Park has been busier than ever. The Friends of Clark Park have continued come through with our promise to keep the park clean, beautiful, and well-maintained, but the added traffic can at times make this an incredibly difficult and expensive task. We were also forced to cancel our usual fundraising events such as Party In The Park and Clark Park Soccer. We need your help to be able to continue our good work in 2021 by raising $10,000. Check out the full campaign HERE.

Your donations will go directly toward:
 
Cleaning the Park.  Funds will provide volunteers with tools and supplies such as rakes, shovels, gloves, and light refreshments for monthly volunteer work days. The funds will also pay for a maintenance contractor to combat rapid trash accumulation when the park is at its busiest by picking up litter and emptying trash cans.

Gardening Program.  Your donation will go toward supplying new plants including shrubs and flowers to make the garden plots lush with color and supply volunteers with tools. A professional arborist is regularly hired for major pruning work on the trees. 

Usability.  Your donation also funds continued projects to help improve how we use the park everyday such as the installation and maintence of benches, picnic tables, and the chess tables. We also continue to purchase and refresh the orange chairs and tables regularly. 

These programs are crucial to keep Clark Park the vibrant public space we all love, but they come at a significant cost and you can make a difference with your contribution. Please keep in mind that Friends of Clark Park is a non-profit section 501(c)(3) organization and your contributions are tax deductible. Thank you for being a part of something bigger!

Love Your Park Fall Service Day on November 14th is nearly upon us and Clark Park is poised to play a very special role as a model park for the city. That’s right Clark Park will be this years Signature Site for Love Your Park which means Philadelphia Parks and Recreation will be highlighting and participating in special celebrations in our park to kickoff this annual citywide event.

For the uninitiated Love Your Park Fall Service Day is a citywide volunteer event on the second Saturday of November. Over 100 parks across Philadelphia host volunteer events to clean up our parks after a busy summer season and prepare these public green spaces for winter – and the following spring! Volunteers plant and care for trees, rake leaves, plant flower bulbs, clean out garden beds, and more. 

As the Signature Site for Love Your Park, Clark Park will host a special celebration and volunteer workday. Join Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, Fairmount Park Conservancy, and the Friends of Clark Park to plant trees, spruce up the garden beds, collect leaves for compost, and clean up trash and litter. All tools and materials, including gloves, will be provided. All participants are required to wear masks, which will also be available for anyone who needs one.

After the workday, Mayor Kenney, Councilperson Gauthier, and the Friends of Clark Park will join us for a brief speaking program to commemorate the citywide service day and celebrate Philly’s incredible parks and public spaces.

Schedule
10:00am – Volunteer check-in
10:15am – Begin projects
11:45am – Wrap-up projects
12:00pm – Speaking program with Mayor Kenney and Councilperson Gauthier

Check out the Love Your Park website for more details and to sign up to volunteer.