How can the community help with the maintenance effort?
A. One of the major ways for the community to help is through the adopt-a-park program. The coordinator position has recently been vacated, however, our district parks manager is willing to work with interested parties directly to get them signed up. The program can be tailored so volunteers turn the time into social outings (meet at the park to pull weeds for an hour, or walk the perimeter and pick up litter – talking as you go!). The program is very flexible. Participants can adopt areas of the park of interest to them visited regularly or establish annual or semi-annual work days, etc. Other than health and safety work, much of the horticultural maintenance efforts are driven by time availability. One of the biggest time hogs is litter pick up. Another is graffiti removal. While not glamorous or exciting for volunteers, it is non-technical and has an immediate benefit – every minute that parks staff is not picking up litter translates into time they can spend on other tasks that mak
