The 31st annual Park Pride event Saturday brought out volunteers who spent time in one of the many parks in the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District.
After a long winter, the parks need sprucing up. Teams spent time spreading mulch, pulling weeds, raking up twigs and leaves and doing other simple but time-consuming projects.
Chris Paicely of the White Sox team and Deon Davis
of the Pony Red Sox, clean up sticks at Leavitt Park
as Park Pride volunteers. (Photos by Mary
Compton/H-F Chronicle)
The 31st annual Park Pride event Saturday brought out volunteers who spent time in one of the many parks in the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District.
Chicago Heights and
Vincent Dela Torre, 13,
from Flossmoor pull and
gather weeds at Leavitt
Park. The boys, who play
with the Flossmoor
Baseball League,
volunteered their time
for Park Pride 2017.
After a long winter, the parks need sprucing up. Teams spent time spreading mulch, pulling weeds, raking up twigs and leaves and doing other simple but time-consuming projects.
The sun came out but with the wind, temperatures were hovering at 50 degrees. Doug Boehm, superintendent of parks and planning, said the weather put a hold on filling the flowerbeds, one of the traditional Park Pride projects.
“We have $1,500 worth of stock, but there are frost warnings the next two days and we didn’t want to risk it,” he said.
Tony Aver of Homewood said he comes every year to work in the parks. This year he was working at Irwin Park with eighth graders at James Hart School pulling weeds from the Marie Irwin Center’s flower beds and spreading mulch around the trees.
his siblings, Tatyana
Stripling and Chris
Stripling shovel mulch
into place at Goldberg
Park during Park Pride
2017.
“It’s a great way to get the community involved,” he said. Spending time doing physical labor outdoors also substituted for his day at the gym.
Hart School students Adam Freeman, Delaney Eaheart, Ella Bolling, Chloe Castady, Leah Noble, Kate VanEtten, Jordan Johnson, Eliana D’Astici and Joseph Cole were getting service hours for their membership in Hart’s National Junior Honor Society.
Homewood-Flossmoor High School junior Enrique Munoz volunteered as a member of the H-F Key Club. He said in the past he’s volunteered on behalf of his brother’s baseball team.
Lamaya and Lamira Marshall and Histore LaGrone, students at Parker Junior High, and Victoria LaGrone, a sophomore at H-F, said they came out to help.
“We just volunteer,” said Lamira. “We did it last year, too.”
Volunteers were treated to a lunch of hot dogs and pizza at the Irwin Center, and all volunteers were given a Park Pride T-shirt.
Park Pride is sponsored by Dairy Queen of Homewood; Fox Vending; Walt’s Food Centers; Andrew McCann; Lawn Sprinkler, Inc.; Homewood Disposal; Monarch Auto Supply; Helsel-Jepperson; Aurelio’s Pizza; Lisa Grant Orthodontics; Great Lakes Credit Union; Lou Malnati’s; Expert Chemical Supply Inc.; Fratello’s Café and Deli; and PepsiCo.
some mulch around a tree at Goldberg Park on
Saturday, May 6. Hundreds volunteered their time
to spruce up the parks.