Rain Garden Cleanup

Volunteers work side by side with our Green Infrastructure Maintenance team to perform gardening work in a rain garden in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

Left: Volunteers from the Clean Bushwick Initiative and the Newtown Creek Alliance joined our Green Infrastructure Maintenance team for a cleanup day. Right: Volunteers inspect and clean a rain garden in Brooklyn.

Our Green Infrastructure Maintenance team recently partnered with the Clean Bushwick Initiative for a community planting and clean-up day. The Clean Bushwick Initiative, whose mission is to create a safe and healthy community environment by raising awareness about littering, cleaning up street trash and beautifying local parks, organized a group of volunteers to plant in the rain gardens around Maria Hernandez Park in Brooklyn. And thanks to the Newtown Creek Alliance, the volunteers also learned more about the local waterway that they were helping to protect, since healthy rain gardens in Bushwick absorb stormwater that would otherwise contribute to combined sewer overflows into Newtown Creek.

If you’d like to get involved in planting rain gardens in your neighbrohood, visit Become a Rain Garden Steward.