It’s Your Park Day 2025
 Springfield Park, Queens, NY

Darlene Hudson

Volunteers for Springfield Park, VFSP, would like to thank the Kiwanis Club students, residents, NYC Parks, and other park volunteers for coming out in full support of the cleanup effort on Saturday, May 17th, 2025.  Although the day started with some rain, the sun came out, and so did the members of the community. 

Queens Springfield Park spans just over 23 acres, making maintenance quite challenging for us. However, today we focused primarily on the park house areas, as well as a smaller section also known as “the quieter north end.” The park house is currently undergoing renovations, with the hope of finishing the work before the end of summer.  This will now allow full-time staff to be on-site every day.

Some of our volunteers tidied up the shrubs around the park house and added new flowers, while others worked on the northern part of the park, pulling weeds, clearing dead leaves, and picking up trash near the signs and park entrances. All in all, the day was a success. Several people using the park stopped by to thank us for helping to keep it clean.

A big thank you and shout-out to the Kiwanis Club

Throughout many of our cleanup efforts, we often receive assistance from the students of the Kiwanis club.  Many of these students are not from the neighborhood or nearby communities; however, they are enthusiastic and energetic in their efforts.  They come ready to work and are always willing to learn new things, such as how to operate various gardening tools.  We are grateful for their help and support, as their efforts can be seen when you walk through the park. Thanks also to the director for getting the students involved with this initiative.