We have heroes of our community who maintain the neighborhood, and we have behind-the-scenes workers and volunteers who maintain Fort Greene Park. One of the park’s heroes is gardener Maxine Webb. In 2003, Maxine joined an HRA (Human Resources Association) gardening program until she became a NYC Parks employee. In 2016, she began working at Fort Greene Park. Maxine cleans up flower beds, reseeds lawns, plants trees, shrubs, and flowers. Every day, she looks forward to teaching volunteers and seeing their hard work bloom.
Thomas Arrington is a gardener for Fort Greene Park. For 8 months, Thomas has been maintaining the park’s horticulture and leading volunteer groups. Thomas grew up visiting parks across the city and has always been drawn to green space stewardship. His favorite part about working at the park is working with Maxine, Rosa, and all the wonderful volunteers. Thomas appreciates working at the park because of his two passions; history and nature.
We also celebrate the Volunteer Gardeners who rake, weed, plant and perform erosion control twice a week from March through November. One of the volunteers, Alma Garcia, is retired so she decided to volunteer to care for what she calls our treasure (Fort Greene Park.) Sylvia Kim volunteered to learn how to take care of plants. Marisa Brown volunteered for the community and loves to see how the work that they put in years ago blooms today. Jeff Schwane loves contributing to Fort Greene Park. Together, the park employees and volunteers nurture the park, and we recognize them as our Community Heroes.
Rosa Rosado, City Park Worker, retiring in 2024
Rosa Rosado also started working with NYC Parks through HRA. Rosa does it all, from planting, painting benches, cleaning up, and more! Rosa’s efforts ensure that everyone can enjoy the park.
Rosa loves being outside and looks forward to cleaning the park. She removes all park graffiti and stickers, fills holes, and enjoys beautifying the park so that we can all enjoy it. After caring for NYC Parks for 20 years, she plans to retire in October and return to Puerto Rico with her husband.
Learn more about volunteering at the Fort Greene Park Conservancy here: www.fortgreenepark.org/volunteer