Parks and Recreation board seeking volunteers for park cleanup
By Anessa Myers
Published in News on January 9, 2008 1:58 PM
In many of Goldsboro's parks, patches of brown grass, unruly bushes and fallen branches are seen every day.
There just aren't enough city maintenance workers to go around.
The workers rotate through the parks taking care of the big tasks, like mowing the grass, but they don't always have time to get to the small, fine-tuning jobs such as trimming the hedges and picking up trash.
The Goldsboro Recreation and Parks Advisory Commission is hoping to fix that with its Adopt-a-Park program.
The program encourages people to volunteer their time to help beautify the parks' grounds in exchange for a sign recognizing the group or even an award for a certain number of hours spent.
But the program has had a slow start.
Commission members met Tuesday night to discuss how to boost the interest in the community.
Parks and Recreation Director Sonya Shaw said she has contacted other cities and towns to see how they got their Adopt-a-Park program started, and she heard back mixed reviews.
Some of them had programs so popular that they had a waiting list for people waiting to volunteer. Others were in the same boat as Goldsboro.
In speaking with other areas, success came down to the one thing Mrs. Shaw already knew was a necessity -- community involvement.
Commission Chair Betsy Wharton agreed.
"We just need some people to go out there and clean it up," she said. "Even that would make the parks look a whole lot better. The city just doesn't have the manpower to do it."
The commission encourages churches, civic groups and schools to participate. Contact the Parks and Recreation Department at 739-7480 for more information.