Bronx Volunteers Honored with City-Wide Award

Partnerships for Parks It’s My Park Awards Ceremony

Bronx Volunteers Honored

Friends of Crotona Park Awarded for Outstanding Service, Activism,

and Collaboration

December 2, 2015

 

New York, NY: On December 2, Partnerships for Parks hosted the It’s My Park Awards Reception to honor parks volunteers who have demonstrated exceptional leadership and commitment to their local parks through service, advocacy and collaboration. Partnerships for Parks presented seven awards at the ceremony including the 2015 Golden Trowel Awards for the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island, as well as the Tim Tompkins Leadership Award, and, for the first time, the Community Parks Initiative (CPI) Award.

 

Nearly 300 parks volunteers from across the five boroughs came out to celebrate the occasion, held in the Rotunda of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House. The evening featured remarks from NYC Parks Commissioner Mitchell J. Silver, City Parks Foundation (CPF) Executive Director Heather Lubov, CPF Board Chair David Moore, CPF Board Member John Troubh, Director of Partnerships for Parks Sabina Saragoussi, New York City Councilmember Mark Levine, and US Head of Environmental Affairs at TD Bank Joe Doolan. Partnerships for Parks founder Tim Tompkins, NYC Parks First Deputy Commissioner Liam Kavanagh and Bronx Borough Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa were also on hand to honor the volunteers.

 

Giving even more cause for celebration, CPF Executive Director Heather Lubov announced at the ceremony a new partnership with TD Bank that will see them as the lead sponsor for the 2016 It’s My Park season and the lead support of the Capacity Fund Grant program. Their support will help Partnerships for Parks continue to grow and expand the number of park clean ups and volunteers that participate. They will also double the amount of grant funds available to friends groups.

 

The Golden Trowel award recognizes volunteers’ commitment to transforming their parks and green spaces into dynamic community assets. It is presented to a community group from each borough that has led It’s My Park and other programs, and has demonstrated exceptional organizational growth. This year’s Golden Trowel recipient from the Bronx, home to 207 parks groups, was Friends of Crotona Park, led by Rosemary Ordonez-Jenkins.

 

Since its inception in 2003, Friends of Crotona Park has been an enormous programming resource for Crotona Park. Through the efforts of their leader, Rosemary Ordonez-Jenkins, the group has organized dozens of parades and festivals, and is instrumental in bringing the Tools of War True School Hip Hop Summer Jams series back to the park every July. Featuring the likes of Grandmaster Caz, DJ Jazzy Jay, and Lord Finesse, the concerts keep the sounds and culture of early hip-hop alive in the borough where it was born decades ago.

 

All parks groups were self or peer nominated and vetted by a Partnerships for Parks selection committee that focused on nominee’s achievements in the past year. Special regard was given to nominees who demonstrated achievement or overcame a challenge in their park or within their community group, coordinated a It’s My Park project or event, and/or acted as an inspirational role model for NYC community park volunteers.

About Partnerships for Parks

Partnerships for Parks (PfP) is an innovative joint program of NYC Parks and the City Parks Foundation founded in 1995. We are the public-private program that supports and champions a growing network of leaders caring and advocating for neighborhood parks and green spaces. We equip people, organizations and government with the skills and tools they need to transform these spaces into dynamic community assets. PfP envisions parks as spaces where community members and decision makers work together to create their city. To learn more visit: www.PartnershipsforParks.org

 

Partnerships for Parks is funded in part by the Parks Equity Initiative of the NYC Council under the leadership of Speaker Melissa Mark Viverito.

BX Golden Trowel Award Winner - Friends of Crotona Park - Ciara Gannon, FOCP Members, David Moore, Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, Heather Lubov, Rosemary Ordonez-Jenkins, Mitchell Silver, Sabina Saragoussi

BX Golden Trowel Award Winner – Friends of Crotona Park – Ciara Gannon, FOCP Members, David Moore, Iris Rodriguez-Rosa, Heather Lubov, Rosemary Ordonez-Jenkins, Mitchell Silver, Sabina Saragoussi. Photo by Malcolm Pinckney.

BX Golden Trowel Award Winner - Friends of Crotona Park - FOCP Members, Mitchell Silver, Rosemary Ordonez-Jenkins, FOCP Members

BX Golden Trowel Award Winner – Friends of Crotona Park – FOCP Members, Mitchell Silver, Rosemary Ordonez-Jenkins, FOCP Members. Photo by Malcolm Pinckney.

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