On April 26th, 2025, our team hosted our 146th event from 9 am to 12 pm. We partnered with Maureen Regan in order to beautify Bowne Playground in honor of Earth Month to create a greener and cleaner environment. Maureen Regan is a community advocate, fostering youth education for environmental justice, health and Wellness, climate change with a focus on a sustainable urban space. She sits on many local boards, VP of Operations at Queens Historical Society, Co-Chair of Olde Towne of Flushing Burial Ground Conservancy, President of Queensboro Hill Flushing Civic, Voelker Orth Museum and on the CAB of NY Presbyterian Hosp Queens and Queens College. She created Green Earth Urban Gardens in 2011 to address local green spaces and food justice in the community. She also is a board member of Community Board 7, which serves all of Northeast Queens.
In the beginning of this event, some members help bring out tools from a shed in the park. They have brought out a collection of shovels, rakes, trash bags, and garbage pickers. After this, our members were split into groups. High schoolers are in charge of the mulch, middle schoolers weeding the garden beds, and kids in elementary are in charge of trash picking. When members are going around the park to pick up trash, they have noticed that many trash are in the garden beds. In order to clean up those, members carefully climb over the still slightly wet short fences of the beds in order to get into the garden beds. Making sure to not step on any flowers, members used the garbage pickers to pick up any trash they see, such as plastic bags or food containers, and put them in trash bags. Not only did they pick up the trash within the playground, they also picked up any trash surrounding the playground in order for a cleaner and greener environment. For members who are weeding, they use shovels in order to make sure the weeds are cleared fully. While the common practice to remove weeds is to just pull them, it results in breaking the roots off which allow the roots to grow back again. In using the shovel to get underneath the roots, members are able to upheave the entire weed without breaking any roots, ensuring that the weeds will not regrow. When removing the weeds, members shook off any soil that was remaining on the roots of the weed before throwing it into the trash bags. The reason for this is because we don’t want any soil to be in the bags. For any weeds that have thorns, members would use the shovel to try to clean up the dirt remaining on the roots before having members with rakes to push the weed onto the shovel in order to be disposed of into the trash bags. Then, high schoolers who were in charge of mulching used wheelbarrows, shovels, and rakes in order to mulch the small trees and big trees that were around the playground.
During this event, Kevin McClain, the District Park Manager, Roxana, and Ada stopped by to view the progress done in the effort of beautifying Bowne Playground, offering us words of encouragement as well. After a while, Senator John C. Liu stopped by the event, giving us words of encouragement for the Earth Month effort, where we are helping to keep things clean and fresh. As sustainability is at the heart of modern life, initiatives that promote eco-friendly practices, such as weed management, soil health monitoring, and water conservation, help the community reduce their environmental footprints while boosting health and wellness. However, due to the little time he has in his schedule, he handed the certificates to Maureen to be handed out later. Our members continued working for a while longer, before having break time with the muffins, apples, and water that Maureen and Frank had provided. After we finished eating, Maureen started handing out the certificates from Senator John C. Liu that are given to members who had participated more last year. At the end of the event, our members help clean up the tools and make sure that no tools are left behind.
We would like to thank all our members for all their hard work as well as the Green Earth Urban Gardens and the Parks departments for all their efforts of keeping the environment clean and fresh. We would like to give our thanks to Maureen for all her continuous efforts of preserving the environment as well as her efforts of being a community advocate. We appreciate all the hard work you have done as well as the snacks you provide during our events in order to fuel us with more energy. We look forward to working with you in the future.
Our volunteers:
1. Jia Qi Liu (Angela): 3 hours
2. Vicki Lin: 3 hours
3. Hong Hao Liu : 3 hours
4. Ioknor Lin : 3 hours
5. Ioklee Lin : 3 hours
6. Sophia Xu : 3 hours
7. Anthony Xu : 3 hours
8. Eric Zheng : 3 hours
9. Stephanie ShiRan You : 3 hours
10. Alexander Lu : 3 hours
11. Sophia ShiHan You : 3 hours
12. Kaisa Wu : 3 hours
13. Evan Li : 3 hours
14. Ivan Cao : 3 hours
15. Eason Lin : 3 hours
16. Terrence Cao : 3 hours
17. Dylan Chen : 3 hours
18. Bowen Chen : 3 hours
19. Leon Chen : 3 hours
20. Mohan Luo : 3 hours
21. Zhuoning Li : 3 hours
22. Yifei Mei : 3 hours
23. Katrina Zhang : 3 hours
24. Yuyan Fan : 3 hours
25. Derrick Gao : 3 hours
26. Kaitlyn Zhang : 3 hours
27. Anson Gao : 3 hours
28. Austin Yuel : 3 hours
29. Opal Tsai : 3 hours
30. Brandon Lin : 3 hours
31. Aiden Lin : 3 hours
32. Matthew Lin : 3 hours
33. Ryan Wu : 3 hours
34. Henry Jiang : 3 hours
35. Adrian Jiang : 3 hours
36. Elina Lee : 3 hours
37. Ian Lee : 3 hours
38. Albert Tang : 3 hours
39. Nerissa Xu : 3 hours
40. Paxton Xu : 3 hours
41. Ella Tai : 3 hours
42. Hongyu Wei : 2.5 hours
43. Sophia Lu : 1.5 hours
44. Zhengyilan Fang : 1.5 hours
45. Shiqi Zheng : 1.5 hours
Parent Adviser Team:
Cui Fang Li (Fannie): 5 hours
Teng Fei Liu (Faye): 5 hours
Hsinhui Liao (Karen): 5 hours
Report written by: Jia Qi (Angela) Liu
