In Fairmount Park, volunteers spend MLK Day tackling invasive species

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At the busy intersection of 52nd Street and Parkside Avenue on Monday, Azor Baker joined about two dozen volunteers shoveling leaves and clearing invasive English ivy that had obscured the century-old stone wall that marks the entrance to this section of West Fairmount Park.

“Well, I’m out here volunteering for the humanity of Martin Luther King Day,” said Baker, who lives a couple blocks away in the West Parkside neighborhood. “It’s a special day for all of us…for us all to come together and to have a more clean city.”

The effort, organized by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, along with the Fairmount Park Conservancy, was just one of hundreds of volunteer events across the Philadelphia region as part of the nation’s oldest and largest effort in honor of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Tens of thousands of volunteers cleared trash, packed hygiene kits for unhoused residents, rallied for peace and justice, and distributed food and clothing.

“Today’s a great day that we’re all coming out as one together,” said West Parkside resident Racquel Wiley. “There’s no ‘I’ in ‘we.’ And I want to do more things in my community.”

Both Wiley and Baker work for the Business Association of West Parkside’s Taking Care of Business program, which regularly cleans up the nearby commercial strip.

Fitler Square resident Andre Martinez said he joined the effort to give back to a park he uses often. He said when he thinks of King, he is inspired to stand up for others.

“People who don’t have the rights that they should and treating your neighbor the way you’d like to be treated, fighting against the system that diminishes people.”

Organizers say the MLK Day of Service aims to encourage people to volunteer year-round.

Battling invasives in Fairmount Park

This section of the park, which includes the Mann Music Center, the Please Touch Museum and Kelly pool, is known as the Centennial District after the 100th anniversary celebration of the nation’s founding that brought visitors and exhibits from all over the world in 1876.

“It’s historic,” said Torjia Karimu, a landscape manager for the Fairmount Park Conservancy. Pointing to the stone wall that lines the small bridge connecting 52nd Street with Parkside Avenue, Karimu said the thick vines of English ivy could damage the bridge.

“It will impact the structural integrity of this particularly beautiful bridge, which I reckon is as old as over 100 years,” he said.

Karimu said the conservancy works to manage the invasives by clearing them and planting native species like oak and hickory trees that thrived before European settlers arrived.

“We want to grow the urban canopy so that in 10, 15, 20 years you can see a beautiful forest blossoming.”

Karimu said that’s important for the animals that depend on those native plants.

“For example, the birds, they know what fruits to eat because they evolved with them. Now if you introduce something that is completely new. They are like, ‘what is this?’ They are in shock.”

Invasive species are one of the largest challenges for park managers, said Tony Sorrentino, director of the conservancy.

“If you don’t remove them, the challenge is you kind of lose control of the landscape,” Sorrentino said. “You have all of this beautiful old stonework from the 1870s. You could see it all around us here, around the Mann Music Center, around Parkside.”