Volunteers Make an Impact For our Public Lands
Did you know that PTNY recently organized and held two statewide volunteerism events??
The weekends of April 19-22 (Canal Clean Sweep) and May 4 (I Love My Park Day) saw thousands of volunteers (7,000+!) joining together to celebrate and care for the waterways, greenway trails, parks, historic sites, and public lands across NYS. From clean-up efforts to plantings and maintenance projects, people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities participated in stewardship activities to prepare our public lands for what will undoubtedly be a busy spring and summer!
Canal Clean Sweep and I Love My Park Day might be familiar, household names but they’ve got a BIG glow-up this year, joining an expanded slate of year-long stewardship events under the Love Our New York Lands Campaign. PTNY is excited and grateful to leverage our decades of experience running volunteer events across the state to expand our communities’ impact for public lands with partners NYS Parks, the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, and Canal Corporation.
Love Our New York Lands (LONYL) works to create a culture of appreciation for our public lands, acknowledging their importance in our lives and encouraging all a sense of collective responsibility in their health and wellbeing, now and for the future. This message is even more critical as we celebrate the Centennial Year of our State Parks System in 2024… while we focus on what a committed legacy of stewardship has provided our families, communities, and state now, and what our responsibility is to these shared treasures moving forward. . LONYL has also helped unite PTNY’s two flagship volunteerism events under one mission: to celebrate and enhance all of our public green spaces for use and enjoyment by all.
Many hands make light work and we’re lifting even more for our most treasured outdoor spaces! Learn more about these critical stewardship events below…
Canal Clean Sweep
Every year, events are held across the country to celebrate Earth Day. Originating in the United States in the late 1960s in response to growing environmental concerns, the catalyst for Earth Day was sparked by a massive oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California in 1969. This disaster resulted in public outrage and a heightened awareness about environmental issues. Senator Gaylord Nelson, concerned about the lack of political attention to environmental problems, proposed the idea of a national day to focus on the environment. On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated featuring rallies, protests, and educational events across the country. It marked a turning point in the environmental movement, leading to the passage of key environmental legislation and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the United States. Since then, Earth Day has grown into a global event, observed by millions of people worldwide, to raise awareness about environmental issues and promote sustainability.
In New York State, Parks & Trails New York and the New York State Canal Corporation have been hosting one of the largest, three-day Earth Day events for the last 19 years. Canal Clean Sweep is held over Earth Day weekend to help clean up and maintain the trails and waterways along the Erie Canal and other canal systems in New York State. Volunteers come together to remove debris and litter, helping to preserve these historic and recreational assets across segments of the Erie Canal (running from Buffalo to Albany), sections of the Champlain Canal (running from Waterford to Whitehall), portions of the Oswego Canal (extending from Oswego to Phoenix), segments of the Cayuga-Seneca Canal (from Cayuga Lake to Seneca Lake), and sections of the Old Erie Canal State Park (from DeWitt to Rome), and areas along the Mohawk River (connecting the Erie Canal to the Hudson River).
This event helps kick off the navigation season (all portions of the New York State Canal system are scheduled to open Friday, May 17, 2024) and fosters a sense of community pride and environmental stewardship.
In 2024, 193 Clean Sweep events occurred across the corridor, with participation from close to 4,000 people. On average, each event organizer received four-and-a-half 55 gallon trash bags (depending on their group size). We estimate that most groups filled at least 4 bags, meaning around 772 bags of trash were filled across the three-day event for a total of 42,460 gallons of trash removed! 42,460 gallons of trash would be roughly equivalent to 53 tons… To help visualize the impact, the amount of trash collected would be equivalent to the weight of 5 to 6 adult African elephants! That doesn’t even account for items too big to fit in a trash bag like tires, bikes, and vacuum cleaners.
Many local governments and county agencies serve as sponsoring organizations for Canal Clean Sweep events held within their jurisdictions. These entities provide logistical support, equipment, and volunteer resources to ensure the success of cleanup efforts in their communities.
I Love My Park Day
In the spring of 2010 New York State closed down state parks for the first time ever in 125 years! Imagine, 88 parks, about 40% of the whole system, were all set to stay shut for the entire summer. Even through world wars, the Great Depression, and other devastating events, NYS Parks stayed open.
The closures became the hottest topic in Albany. Right before Memorial Day weekend, the governor and the legislature restored $11 million for the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation just in time for the recreation season. PTNY’s grassroots organizing campaign was instrumental in keeping all parks open in the face of severe proposed budget cuts.
Just two years later PTNY and the Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation hosted the first annual “I Love my Park Day,” a statewide event to help improve and enhance New York’s State Parks and Historic Sites, bringing visibility to the entire park system and its needs.
On May 4, 2024 more than 4,000 volunteers across the state for I Love My Park Day, helping celebrate New York’s State Parks for their Centennial Year by participating in the largest single-day volunteer event in NYS.
I Love My Park Day does more than gather communities to pick up trash. It promotes environmental stewardship, growing the next generation of caretakers for our treasured public green spaces. By bringing neighbors, families, and communities together it also creates a sense of community pride, encouraging individuals to connect with each other and the natural spaces they love. By volunteering their time and energy, participants contribute to the preservation and sustainability of New York State's natural resources now, and for the future generations to come.
Event organizers, mostly volunteer-led grassroots “Friends” groups, provide hands-on instruction to participants to help them complete various outdoor activities from small builds (picnic tables) to plantings, shoreline cleanups, and painting (to name just a few).
And the 2024 legion of I Love My Park Day volunteers made a BIG difference in 2024. At Walkway Over the Hudson, volunteers helped prepare garden beds by weeding, planting, pruning, mulching and watering to kickstart the upcoming spring season. In the Saratoga/Capital region, Thacher State Park volunteers participated in clearing trails, spreading mulch on playgrounds, and general roadside cleanup and gardening. At Robert Moses State Park, families and friends collected litter along the beachfront, planted in the area gardens, and set up the picnic area for summertime fun. Over in Western NY, community raked trails, painted and spruced up the Labyrinth, mulched gardens, and removed invasive plants at Reinstein Woods Nature Preserve. At Lorenzo NYS Historic Site volunteers raked leaves and mulched the newly planted Douglas Fir Tree.
This is just the briefest snapshot of all the work, care, sweat, and dedication that went into I Love My Park Day 2024, but with 140+ events across the state you can imagine how many gates got painted, beaches combed and cleaned, garden beds weeded, trail surfaces mended, bird houses built, and playgrounds mulched. Every year I Love My Park Day provides experiences to volunteers that help cultivate a shared responsibility for preserving and enjoying our public lands for all New Yorkers.
We want to thank everyone who turned out for Canal Clean Sweep and I Love My Park Day this year… you make a HUGE difference! From agency staff to scout clubs, Rotary and Kiwanis chapters, Adopt-a-Trail groups, nature clubs, college students, church groups, elected officials, sports teams, organizations, and local businesses… you are the reason we continue to work to improve the accessibility, health, and reach of our public lands. Thank you for all you do.