A Year of Developments and Community Impact 

Parkland Developments

We are ecstatic to have helped advocate and support initiatives with NYC Parks for the improvement and development of the physical parkland. These include an amazing $388,500 from Councilwoman Paladino to restore both of our nearly century-old Twin Gazebos, which have fallen into disrepair and became safety hazards. Our beautiful and diverse tree canopy was expanded with dozens of  trees were planted by Forestry - thank you to Dana for providing some insights into the parkland through conversations and site visits with Parks. Interested in more? Check out his 2022 blog Conceptual Plan for Tree and Shrub Planting in Crocheron. Dana and his volunteers’   work on the Wildflower Meadow has achieved designation by NYC Parks as a Pollinator Place!  It is located between the two ball fields on 35th Ave - check out more here.

Parkgoers also attended a Community Input Meeting for the renovation of O’Rourke Playground, thanks to the amazing support for our park after the 2023 commitment from Councilwoman Paladino and QBP Richards to provide a combined $6.7 million  for the total rebuild of the playground. Additionally, we have good news, Parks is set to begin the path construction work in Winter/Spring 2025 - the online tracker is here. We also look forward to the installation of two interpretive boards, one about pollinators and another about our trees, graciously funded by Councilwoman Paladino and a grant from CitizensNYC, respectively.

Annual Events

Friends continued to host annual events and brought new events as well as partnerships with new organizations. Thanks in large part to our resident yogi, Ambeka, we hosted our 2nd annual International Yoga Day - bringing together over 25 yoga enthusiasts! This is a wonderful expansion of the free yoga classes that Ambeka leads in Crocheron Park, and at Commonpoint Bay Terrace during colder months, all through ShapeUp NYC. Then in July, we had the Friends’ 4th annual John Golden Day, with a history tour led by our Urban Park Rangers. See more on our history exhibit here. We are thrilled to have partnered with Sage, a GS, for her Silver Award to promote the conservation of fireflies, the Event: “Where Did the Fireflies Go?” We also had a number of cleanups and watering events, including the Cord Meyer Park Cleanup and City of Water Day Cleanup. Thank you to our amazing volunteers for their hard work!

New Events & Partners

Some new events and partners from 2024 include a fall Forest Bathing event with Linda Lombardo, 18 participants enjoyed finding tranquility through connection with our trees. We are also excited to begin work with the Oakland Gardens branch of AYLUS, as they helped to  steward the Mrs. Cilimi Pollinator Garden, their work focuses on watering and weeding the garden plots. 

We started the school year with a weekend of two free kids events, both held in O’Rourke Playground. Mad Science was a hit! Thank you to our Premier Sponsor Cord Meyer Development  for allowing us to bring events like this to the park! In November, we hosted a Tree Appreciation Day, partnering with Bartlett Tree Experts, who hosted tours, gave away over 300 trees to the local community, took down a dead tree and pruned another. Thank you to the Urban Park Rangers, Student Conservation Association, and local environmental organizations for supporting the day! Jessica and volunteers received Citations from NY State Assemblyman Ed Braunstein and NY State Senator John Liu  for collective effort to conserve the beautiful parkland. Check out more event photo here! 

Little Library

Along with funding events and administrative needs, we are pleased to have used funds in our account to sponsor two volunteers for the  Citizen Pruner Course   - we now have 3 Citizen Pruners that are also volunteers of Friends! Our group also aims to shop locally where and when available - doing so we kept more than $3K in our community and LI, including $1,600 to local food establishments! Thanks to volunteers keen eye for promotions and partners, like Innovative Promos that provide a nonprofit discount, we saved over $325! 

Thanks to the very fair agreement with our fiscal sponsor, FJC - A Foundation of Philanthropic Funds, we only spent $152.78 to maintain our nonprofit status! This is great as we do not have capacity to obtain 501C3 status on our own.  This is far below the average rate for fiscal sponsorship. FJC charges a low fee of 4-5% and they allow our group to keep interest made on our funds. This is in comparision to other fiscal sponsors charge an annual 10% fee and the interest from their hard earned funds is kept by the Foundation - and this is a similar agreement that does not provide any further help or assistance... Luckily ours operates differently and is very nonprofit Friendly!

2025

Things are bubbling! Our upcoming events calendar is as exciting as 2024’s! FoCGPP is energized by the opportunities that these initiatives and new collaborations present. We need volunteers to continue our work. The main tasks that we need help with are as follows:

• The Golden Pond Restoration Project 
• Gardening Crew for Mrs. Cilimi Pollinator Garden



We also updated  our events calendar, so look out for more about Forest Bathing on April 27th, International Yoga Day on June 21st, and John Golden Day on July 19th.

Join Us & Advocate!

These achievements were only possible thanks to our committed members, volunteers, and supporters. As this year begins, we are faced with new challenges and routine funding needs that come with NYC’s backwards budget. Less than 1% of funding for Parks, while other cities in US Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago allocate 1.5% to 4.0% . And an unfair percentage goes to ‘flagship’ parks and large conservancies, missing neighborhood parks. NY4P. We invite you to join us in this vital work to support the jewel of Bayside!

We are pleased to continue to see high numbers visiting our website's Contact Your Elected's Page. We recently added Governor Hochul's information and hope that you will make your voice heard, issues do not need to be park based.

We are excited to work with new members and continue our mission to advocate for the preservation and improvement of our beautiful parkland. Thank you for your continued dedication to Our Park! Fill out our volunteer interest form to learn more!