Community Meeting Recap 1/31

Thanks to everyone who made it out to our community meeting last night!  We had a great crowd come out to hear Charlie McCabe, formerly of the Austin Parks Foundation and currently of the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy in Boston.  Charlie gave a great presentation that got us all inspired and excited about all the different ways to use our parks, collaborate with DPW, and engage our communities in the care and usage of our parks!

Charlie talked about a number of ways to bolster support, care for, and usage of parks.  One was the “Its My Park Day!” event that Austin created modeled after NYC’s very successful event.  This event brings volunteers together with DPW for 3 hours in a city-wide day of service in parks.  He described it as a great “ice-breaker” for community members to get to know both their parks and the staff that care for them.

Another way to engage folks in caring for parks is through an Adopt-A-Park program, whereby a group of community members, a school, a business, anyone who is committed can commit to working with the eternally understaffed and underfunded city parks department to help do some of the work they would do if they had more time and resources. Maybe its mulch some trees, or paint a playground, or prune bushes. In Austin they developed a collection of tools that they lent out groups that had adopted a park so they could get together and clean up and maintain their parks regularly.

A really exciting strategy for getting folks working together and outdoors and thinking about how to better their community was the Better Block Program he described. Now this one is exciting because it challenges and inspires you to totally transform a space for a short period of time and show people how a place could look different.

Turn a rundown block of a neighborhood into a place lined with plants and outdoor seating and bike paths – show funders, developers, community members what it could look like!

Charlie also talked about using pieces of unused park land into community gardens.  The REC has already started a trend of not only community gardening (60 community gardens in Worcester!) but of using pieces of park land for this purpose, in Grant Square in the Bell Hill neighborhood of Worcester.

After Charlie’s talk, we had a great group of responses from Peggy Middaugh of Worcester Tree Initiative, Beatice Brian of Worcester Business Development Corporation (WBDC), and Bob Moylan, Commissioner of DPW & Parks for the City of Worcester.  Bob Moylan talked about how he feels Worcester is really moving on parks and is on the verge of making some great changes and investments in parks such as Elm Park and Green Hill Park.  He said his department is always open to ideas and collaboration and to contact him or his assistant Joyce Lee directly.

Beatrice Brian of WBDC was also really excited about different ways to collaborate, especially on the transformation of downtown through the Theater District Master Plan.  They’re really wanting to use the Master Plan process to think about programming, activities, density, space, dining, etc. for the downtown area.

Peggy Middaugh of Worcester Tree Initiative talked about the importance of trees for bringing people together, improving health, reducing crime and making a space feel more inviting.  They’re doing thousands of replantings throughout the city, engaging volunteers as “Tree Stewards” and even planting fruit trees!

Erin Williams of Worcester’s Cultural Development Officer also spoke up to encourage folks to use her and her office as a resource, especially for planning events.  She cited a couple of great things the City is already doing to use parks as a place for events, like the Food Truck Festival they sponsored last summer.  They can help with navigating the maze of paperwork and permits for street closures and other events.  She volunteered her staff member Victoria Hall as a go-to person for us to work with.

One of the most exciting parts of the meeting was having a variety of new faces in the room, especially from the City, volunteering themselves and their offices as willing and excited collaborators with us on a variety of initiatives and projects.  By the end of the evening we were all excited and inspired!

To wrap the meeting up we brainstormed next steps, as well as ideas for future speakers, topics, panelists, at our Community Meetings.  Do you have an idea you’d like to share? Comment here or email us, we’d love to have your input!