By Catia Sharp
It is fall, so football is in season, college students are back in town, and the parks on and near campus are overrun with Frisbee playing and textbook reading. But have you ever wondered how those trash cans are emptied, who prunes the bushes, or how the grass remains that intense shade of green?
Katherine England, the volunteer and youth education coordinator of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, said he knows how the Emerald Necklace stays sparkling.
Aside from the 226 staff members that the Boston Parks and Recreation Department employs – only about 100 of whom physically maintain local parks – many parks in the area are also maintained by volunteer groups. The Emerald Necklace Conservancy is a non-profit citizen’s advocacy group whose mission is to protect and maintain the landscape of parks throughout the city.
The group sponsors volunteer events such as the annual Muddy River Cleanup in April. In this initiative, 300 volunteers, about half of whom are college students, help clean up the Back Bay Fens, England said.
“We have a broad age range [of volunteers], but we like to get students,” England said of the organization. England said students are more willing than other age groups to do the dirty work like garbage collection in the local parks.
“Don’t trash your park, park your trash” is the slogan for the Boston Parks and Recreation Department, and it sums up a hefty maintenance effort in parks throughout Boston by volunteers and employees alike.
Ryan Woods, director of public and private partnerships in the Parks and Recreation Department and the department’s goal is to provide a “safe, clean and healthy environment for Boston residents to enjoy.”
Though the maintenance crews do jobs across the spectrum, ranging from grave digging to painting baseball lines to mowing to graffiti cleanup Woods’ job is to get volunteer groups organized to lighten that load, he said.
“We are always looking for volunteers,” he said.
There are several opportunities to get involved in the surroundning neighborhood at Northeastern. The Honors Program conducts an annual community service initiative, which is mandatory for incoming freshmen honor students. The NU Center for Community Service, located in the Curry Student Center, is a place for students to go to get involved in the community.
Sara De Ritter, associate director for service and community partnerships at the Center of Community Service, said that mroe than 2,000 students annually participate in programs, events, and service-learning opportunities sponsored by the center.
There are also several opportunities for environmentally based service, especially in one-day programs which partner with organizations like the Esplanade Association, Earthworks, and Eagle Eye.
Volunteer fairs are also places for students to learn about options in service opportunities.
“I did community service at my high school,” said John Hammel, a middler mechanical engineering major, “but not so much in college. There’s a bunch of small things that kids can do around here.”
The first Saturday of every month is dedicated by the Emerald Necklace Conservancy to the cleanup of Olmsted Park on the border of Brookline.
In addition, the group conducts Tuesdays with Roses, a series of volunteer rose pruning and clean-up in the rose gardens at the Fens every Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.
