I Love My Park (and Long Island Sound) Day

Long Islanders will have a great opportunity on Saturday, May 6 to show just how much they love their coastal and inland Long Island Sound watershed parks as part of I Love My Park Day.

I Love My Park Day is a statewide event sponsored by Parks and Trails New York to celebrate and enhance New York’s parks and outdoor places. Volunteers participate in cleanup, improvement and other stewardship events and projects such as cleaning up park lands and beaches, planting trees and gardens, restoring trails and wildlife habitat, removing invasive species and working on various construction and site improvements.

2017 will mark the 6th Annual I Love My Park Day. Visit Parks and Trails NY website to find an event near you and to register. Here are the Long Island Sound parks that you can volunteer for:

• Caumsett State Historic Park: beach clean up—collect garbage along the shoreline. Bring a hat and sun block.
• Sunken Meadow State Park: Project 1—building wooden picnic tables. Project 2—weeding, mulching, and renovating native butterfly and pollinator garden.
• Nissequogue River State Park: clean up.
• Caleb Smith State Park Preserve: invasive removal, planting flowers and trees, and clean up streams.
• Wildwood State Park: beach clean up or trail maintenance.
• Orient Beach State Park: tree planting, beachgrass planting, and beach cleanup (the park is in Peconic Bay immediately adjacent to Long Island Sound).