E-Mail This Article to a Friend GREEN VOLUNTEERS Generous parking BY MELISSA OSTROW

With 2200 acres of city parkland to oversee on a budget of about $12 million, the Boston Parks and Recreation Department (BPRD) has come to rely on the help of nonprofit groups and local businesses to keep the city’s outdoor havens green and beautiful.

On Saturday, June 5, one of those nonprofits, the Boston GreenSpace Alliance (BGSA), is sponsoring Plant Yourself in the Park Day, a citywide initiative to celebrate, promote, and improve Boston’s parks and open spaces. More than 2000 volunteers from civic associations, youth groups, religious organizations, neighborhood groups, and Boston schools will pitch in to help clean up and refurbish parks, schoolyards, and playgrounds around the city. In all, there are 120 events scheduled across Boston.

The idea is to get "communities involved and participating in taking care of their community parks," says BGSA executive director Patrice Todisco. She contends that "the Parks Department does a good job with the resources they have," but thinks there is always more to be done. Mary Hines, BPRD director of external affairs, agrees. "It’s terrific that it has been such a concentrated effort, so we knew things would be getting done and we could spend our time on other things," she says.

Although neighborhood volunteers will do most of the work, the Parks Department will not be sitting idly by. City parks employees will pitch in by supplying tools, picking up garbage, painting wrought-iron fences, cleaning out flower beds, and providing necessities such as mulch for plants and Fibar surfacing for children’s playground equipment.

"We tried really hard to not ask [the Parks Department] for things and instead bring things to them," says Todisco. The BGSA spent the past year reaching out to corporate sponsors (Citizens Bank, Starbucks, Home Depot, and about a hundred others) for funds and supplies to make the day a success. It also distributed $10,000 in small grants to neighborhoods groups, encouraging them to reach out to local businesses for supplies.

But Plant Yourself in the Park isn’t all about work. It also involves community events to reward the volunteers and bring people into the city’s parks. The Boston Nature Center, on Walk Hill Street in Mattapan, will follow its morning clean-up and service projects with a tour of the center, a cook-out, and educational activities for kids and families. On another side of town, the Josiah Quincy Elementary School, in Chinatown, will start the day with tai chi classes and follow up with refreshments and lessons in bicycle safety and dog-bite prevention, at nearby Eliot Norton Park. And that’s not even to mention free slushies and a chance to work shoulder-to-shoulder with Massachusetts Senate president Robert Travaglini at Constitution Beach, in East Boston.

The BGSA hopes the effort can become an annual program, and the Parks Department is all for it. "I think it is a wonderful complement to the work being done by the maintenance staff," says Hines. "I think it gives volunteers a sense of ownership and pride in the parks."

For more information on Plant Yourself in the Park, go to www.bostonparks.org