Esplanade Association Seeking ‘Recurring Volunteers’

By Dan Murphy

As volunteer and programs manager for the Esplanade Association, Kyle Richard is now seeking what he calls “recurring volunteers” in the park.

Beginning May 3, Richard, who oversees the non-profit’s volunteer program, which brings more than 3,000 volunteers to the Esplanade each year, will help facilitate the launch of an eight-week program for a group of garden assistants.

“The garden assistants will work with other skilled or soon-to-be skilled volunteers to help with gardens around park, including the Oliver Wendell Holmes Memorial Garden, the Clarendon Street Plaza and the Charles Eliot Memorial,” Richard said. “They will provide maintenance, such as deadheading, weeding, adding mulch, watering and adding compost tea to the gardens.”

Richard will also help coordinate one of the nation’s largest one-day river cleanup events: the 16th annual “Earth Day Charles River Cleanup,” which takes place on Saturday, April 30, from 9 a.m. to noon. Each year, the Esplanade Association takes part in this collaboration led by the Charles River Watershed Association in which volunteers from more than 100 different neighborhood, school, religious, and corporate groups, as well as individual participants, remove litter and debris from the river. More than 4,000 volunteers turned out in 2015 to remove an estimated 5 tons of trash from multiple sites on the watershed from Milton to Boston.

“It’s the biggest cleanup of the year, with a picnic at the Hatch Shell afterwards,” Richard said. “Generally, it’s a fun day and a reintroduction to the park a long winter.”

For more information on the garden-assistant program, the 16th annual “Earth Day Charles River Cleanup” and other volunteer opportunities with the Esplanade Association, e-mail Kyle Richard at [email protected].

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