The Homewood-Flossmoor Park District’s annual Park Pride event brought dozens of volunteers out on Saturday, May 4, for the annual spring event cleaning and refreshing the parks.
Parents Caitlin McCaffrey and Lavon Robinson of Homewood brought their daughters Noa, left, and Amara Robinson to the Park Pride event at Cedar Park. (Marilyn Thomas/H-F Chronicle)
Throughout the morning, volunteers of all ages dug out weeds, planted flowers, picked up garbage and prepared baseball fields.
Pat Nevins has been a Park Pride volunteer since 1988. A former H-F Park District commissioner, he worked at Apollo Park this year moving mulch.
Debbie Maxwell has been volunteering for years since her Saturday morning schedule has been free of work obligations. She lives near Patriots Park and walked over to spend a few hours planting flowers. She uses the walking path at Patriots Park and has been known to walk her dog there, too.
Jay and Hope Zawaski volunteered on behalf of Homewood Baseball and Softball at Apollo Park. They wanted “to help make it clean for the girls and to give our thanks to the people at the park district who work all year to make it nice and playable for us,” Jay said.
Lori Kinahan has been volunteering for many years. She has been a team captain at Goldberg Park in the past, but she volunteered where needed this year. “I always bring the grandkids to the parks. It’s just wonderful,” she said.
Nikki Fisher was among a group of AKA sorority members who worked weeding at Heritage Park and then moved to Dolphin Lake planting the flower beds.
Brooke King-LaBreck volunteered as a member of Flossmoor Community Church’s Community and Connections Committee. She was assigned Cedar Park in her Homewood neighborhood and invited neighbors to join her church friends. A group of about 15 volunteers spent time cleaning up the park.
“It’s an absolutely wonderful feeling that our community can come together both Homewood and Flossmoor, and to see all the young families that have come into our area and to see the people that have been here year after year after year,” said H-F Park Commissioner Debbie Dennison at the hot dog luncheon for volunteers that serves as the culmination to the morning’s work.
With the sun shining and the temperature climbing into the high 70s, Dennison called it an “absolutely perfect day” for Park Pride. “And, the whole community wins with beautiful parks to play in, to enjoy, to walk in.”
