It takes a lot of people to make a successful organization work, and the Garwood Green Team is no exception. Created just before the onslaught of the Covid pandemic, the team thrives with just under 20 active members. But, even with involved membership, the team depends on donations and volunteers to make it all work. For 2024, the team thanks the following for their assistance in making it all possible: Garwood LIDL supermarket, which has provided refreshments for every Unami Park Trails projects the Team has undertaken. From croissants to apple turnovers to liquid refreshments, LIDL has nurtured us through it all. This year, they went a step further and donated cardboard boxes which were used to cover invasive plants to make way for wood chips and new plant plugs to be planted spring 2025.
The Garwood Department of Public Works has always helped, whether it is dropping off equipment, picking up materials, storing our purchases, or just being there when assistance is needed. The Boro Hall Finance Office has turned around our requests with great speed. The Borough Communications staff has always stepped up to post our activities or publicize an event.
For our last fall 2024 project, Statewide Fencing of Garwood stepped up and donated ten 10-foot, 4-foot by 4foot posts which are now supporting birdhouses in Unami Park.
Garwood’s Lincoln School’s Builder’s Club painted all the newly erected birdhouses which the Class of 2023 constructed as part of their NJ School of Conservation training.
The NJDEP Rutgers Cooperative Extension Service WatershedAmbassador program joined with us to conduct stream monitoring classes for Lincoln School science students, and conducted a rain barrel seminar for interested Garwood homeowners. (We still have four left – call me!) They are now teaming with us as we embark on a forest restoration project in Unami Park.
The Union County Chapter of the NJ Native Plants Society is working with us to collect and germinate the native plant seedlings which will be planted spring 2025. Look for our seed sowing workshop in January!
The team had its first non-Garwood volunteer group help when Hillside Mayor Dahlia Vertreese and some of her Zeta Phi Beta Sorority members participated in the November Trails Day project.
Through it all, the Union County Parks Department has been there with guidance, lots of wood chips, and use of their ‘tool truck’ for each project. We thank UC for creating the Adopt a Park program.
The team would not be able to function or undertake these large Park projects without all our active members and their families, and partners. The team thanks you all, and looks forward to continued positive partnership in 2025!
The Garwood Green Team
