Park Pride 3
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Annual Park Pride event has volunteers beautifying parks 

Junior Girl Scouts, from left, Isabella Davies, Katelyn Cheung and Maria Burnette were happily planting spring flowers as part of the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District’s Park Pride event. (Marilyn Thomas/H-F Chronicle)
The front planter at the Irwin Center in Homewood got tender loving care from members of Girl Scout Troops 60234 and 60261 on Friday as part of Park Pride. Volunteers were, from left, Lydia Vargo, Laylah Elmore and Nora Vargo. (Marilyn Thomas/H-F Chronicle)

Volunteers took time this weekend to help plant flowers and clean up around parks in Homewood and Flossmoor as part of the annual Park Pride event.
 

Due to the pandemic, the event got a different treatment this year. Volunteers were assigned to one of the 32 parks in the Homewood-Flossmoor Park District and asked to plant their flowers sometime over the weekend.

The park district’s tradition is to have volunteers work at parks on the first Saturday of May. Volunteers get Park Pride T-shirts and a hot dog lunch for their efforts.  But when COVID-19 shut down activities in 2020, the party was canceled. Volunteers still came out to work at the parks, but social distancing restrictions were in place and the event was geared only to families.
 

Cadet Girl Scouts Kyla McAlister, left, and Sommer Owens spent time Friday afternoon planting flowers at the Irwin Center in Homewood as part of Park Pride. (Marilyn Thomas/H-F Chronicle)

Doug Boehm, superintendent of parks and planning, said once the call went out this year, he got volunteers to cover just about every park, but again the park district canceled the Saturday mandate and the hot dog lunch.

Cheryl Vargo said she was happy to have Irwin Park as the location for Girl Scout Troops 60234, 60261 and 65149. The girls’ reward for their efforts on Friday afternoon was a stop at Homewood’s Dairy Queen when they were done.

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