I’ve been looking for a fun volunteering opportunity to do with my kids, so when the Recreation Department sent an email looking for volunteers for the “Ossining Stash the Trash Day & Beautification Projects” I knew this could be it!
I immediately hit reply, wrote that I was interested and asked if there were any projects that would be appropriate to do with kids.
I got a response from Bill Garrison saying that families were welcome and suggesting to work planting flowers on the tree wells on Main Street. The other projects included litter clean up and raking.
So on May 18th we met Brian from the Recreation Department at Market Square. He had a van full of beautiful flowers, gloves and tools. We learned a bit about how to deal with the mulch on top of the soil and properly plant the flowers.
As we worked on the wells, we saw a group from the organization Ossining Padres Hispanos with big bags and grabbers, cleaning up Main Street. I loved seeing the community working together to make our town more beautiful.
We started at 9:00 AM and by 11:00 AM our group had finished most of the trees on Main street. We weeded as we went and unfortunately also cleaned up quite a bit of garbage (please don’t throw cigarette butts in or around the tree wells, or anywhere else on the sidewalks for that matter!).
It was a fun morning and my kids are so proud every time we walk on Main Street. The other day, as my 5 year old sipped on a cold drink in front of First Village Coffee, he asked me “Mommy, do you remember who planted those beautiful flowers?”.
I hope activities like this one teach him and his sister to be involved with the community and to work to make Ossining a better place for all.
Below are some pictures from the morning
Thank you Recreation & Parks Department for this opportunity, it was fun!
