GOTHAMIST—New York City parks have been operating on a slim budget for years, but volunteers are stepping up across the city to keep green spaces maintained.
Largely restricted from the use of power tools or heavy equipment by the parks department, small teams of volunteers diligently clear catch basins, maintain paths and battle back weeds threatening to crack the concrete on the city’s only velodrome.
Advocates say volunteer labor has increasingly become part of how city parks are maintained, with regular New Yorkers giving up valuable free time to tend the grounds of green spaces that have become more popular since the pandemic. The shadow network of unpaid infrastructure workers steps in where the budget has continued to fall short, acting as a first line of defense against worsening extreme weather.
Heather Lubov, executive director of the nonprofit City Parks Foundation, launched the organization’s “NYC Green Fund” in 2020, when budget cuts hit the parks department hard.
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