Volunteers take it upon themselves to maintain Cleveland parks

City administrators look to build more official connections with the community groups working to keep Cleveland’s green spaces beautiful.

Former Cleveland City Council president Jay Westbrook is kneeling in the dirt, planting pansies.

“We water the plants with sweat,” he says. He’s kidding, of course. 

He volunteers these days with the Morelands Group, a neighborhood nonprofit entrusted with a key to a hydrant at Helen Simpson Park on Moreland Boulevard.

Westbrook is among an unknown number of volunteers who help to tend some of Cleveland’s 155 municipal parks, from the .7-acre Simpson to the 254-acre Rockefeller Park. Officials appreciate these volunteers.

“I wish we had more groups like that, because we need some help in our parks,” said Ward 2 councilman Kevin L. Bishop, chair of the municipal services and properties committee, which oversees parks.

There’s no official list of the volunteer groups. The parks’ administration duties are split between the Mayor’s Office of Capital Projects and two public works divisions: the recreation division and the parks maintenance and properties division. The volunteers mostly contact their council members, community development corporations, and neighborhood nonprofits.

A four-year-old Parks and Greenspace Coalition under the Trust for Public Land includes groups that tend 10 Cleveland parks — Abbey, Calgary, Clark, Clemente, Cudell, Dunphy, Impett, Lincoln, Simpson and Woods — plus Lakewood’s Madison Park and all of Cleveland Heights’ parks.

Studies show that even small greenspaces promote physical and mental health, education, community spirit, and the environment.

“We see the parks as critical infrastructure for healthy and equitable communities,” said coalition fellow Tait Ferguson. “People can be in touch with nature and each other.” 

Simpson Park consists mostly of a lawn, benches, walkways, a small planter, some oaks and a plaque for its namesake. The former Ludlow Park was renamed for Helen Simpson, a manager of marketing and promotions at WKYC-TV who died in a 1972 murder that remains unsolved. 

Since then, the volunteers say, the park has had its ups and downs.

“We used to have community picnics here, birthday parties,” said volunteer Joanne Blanchard. “My daughter would play out here. (Then) it fell into a period of decline, crime, drinking, drugs. We want to return the park to the community.”

The volunteers hope their improvements will draw more respectful and appreciative visitors. They’ve planted viburnum, day lilies, grape hyacinths and a sapling from an oak given to Cleveland’s Jesse Owens after his four gold medals at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Munich. They’ve also persuaded the city to install new trash cans and a historic bench displaced from Public Square by renovations. Chess tables are also on the list of hopeful additions.

The volunteers staged the Morelands Fall Festival at Simpson Park in 2021 and 2022, moved it to Shaker Square last year, and plan to return it here this August 10. The group sent its sole employee to a recent conference on city parks in Atlanta.

Ward 4 Councilwoman Deborah A. Gray appreciates Simpson’s volunteers. 

“They’ve been doing good work for the neighborhood for years,” she said.

Across town, the 35-acre Impett Park in the West Park neighborhood has a pool, ballfields, courts, a concession stand, a playground, a pavilion and a rare Cleveland forest. Kate Catanese of the Friends of Impett Park said the forest draws hawks, bluebirds, deer and more.

Parks volunteers don’t just plant but lobby, too. Impett’s friends recently coaxed two bike racks from the city and persuaded it to replace the restrooms’ key-operated lock with a coded one, so workers could open it without exchanging a key. Now the volunteers are helping the city plan bigger improvements.

Parks volunteers also write grant proposals. Impett’s recently won  $3,700 from Neighborhood Connections for a garden and $6,000 from Cuyahoga Arts and Culture for a mural. 

Volunteers say they often tackle problems faster than the city does. At Artha Woods Park, which lies on Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard south of Fairhill, someone painted graffiti on the signs, swings, slides, walkway and even the grass last summer, just before a kickball league was about to start. The local New Image Block Association couldn’t get the city to clean the place up in time. So the group did it themselves, scrubbing and painting over the mess.

Leah Ross, who runs New Vista’s fiscal agency, said the effort seems to have impressed officials. The group has raised more than $160,000 from the city and various foundations for pending improvements, such as replacing basketball hoops, restoring ballfields and repaving the walking path.

Ross and her husband often take their four children to Artha Woods Park to bicycle, throw a frisbee or toss a football on its several acres. There, they often enjoy classical music playing on a neighboring balcony. 

“In my neighborhood,” said Ross, “we don’t have a lot of community spaces. We’re always meeting folks there to connect and spend time together.”

Based on residents’ input, the city recently drafted a master plan for parks that more directly involves volunteers. 

“Community and other organizations expressed interest in developing collaborative partnerships with the City,” the plan reads. “There is energy to establish ‘Friends of’ groups and to leverage community volunteerism, but navigating the city’s organizational structure and processes is currently difficult.”

The draft calls for the city to “cultivate long-term relationships with community members, leaders, and community and cultural organizations to help enhance parks and recreation facilities and programs.”

The volunteers say they don’t mind giving the city sweat and time as well as taxes.

“We believe in the city’s responsibility to maintain the parks, but we see a shortage of resources and some inequitable distribution,” Ross said.

Councilman Bishop doesn’t worry that volunteers might cut into union work. 

“If we want to go outdoors and do some cleaning and plant some flowers, no union person would do that anyway,” he said.

Bonnie Perry, president of AFSCME Local 100, which represents Cleveland workers, said in an email that the local “often works closely with park volunteers to promote our city and region’s beautiful parks and green spaces. When there are questions about job titles or job responsibilities assigned to union positions, AFSCME Local 100 addresses those issues with the City of Cleveland.”

Perrin Verzi, who manages the Rockefeller Park Greenhouse, said her volunteers do chores that her staff wouldn’t, such as tending the gardens and fish tanks. 

“Some people have been involved over 20 years, and some put in an amazing amount of hours,” Verzi said. “I’m grateful they’re so dedicated.”