Springtime brings green projects, volunteer opportunities

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With springtime comes the season for green projects, and the need for volunteers to help clean up the neighborhood and maintain green spaces.

On Friday April 24, we’ll be helping Tree Pittsburgh plant 100 restoration trees at the reforestation site on Brereton Street just below 30th Street (this is where the goats were brought in to clear vines last year). A group of corporate volunteers will be coming to help, but it would be great to have some help from residents too. Meet at the site at 10:00 a.m.

And Saturday April 25 is the neighborhood clean up, part of the city-wide Redd Up / Earth Day event. Meet at the PHCA office at 10:00 a.m. We’re also looking for people to lead volunteer teams to clean up different sites in the neighborhood.

Further ahead, on May 16 there will be a workday at Maly Park, at the corner of Dobson Street and Herron Avenue.  The PHCA won a grant from the City’s Love Your Block program to help fix up the park.  And on May 23, we’ll need help planting flowers in the beds at West Penn Park.

Starting in May, there will be weekly gardening sessions at the Edible Garden at West Penn, which raises produce which is donated to the Jubilee Pantry on Brereton Street.  There will also be a monthly workday at the Knotweed project site on Melwood Avenue.  For more information on green projects volunteer events, email valerie@phcapgh.org.

(Above:  flower planting at West Penn park, May 2014.  Photo by Valerie Testa.)