Love Your Park Week returns to Philadelphia May 9 through 17 with more than 100 volunteer projects spread across neighborhood parks citywide. Organized by Fairmount Park Conservancy, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, and the Park Friends Network, Love Your Park Week is the annual spring mobilization that gets Philadelphians into their local green spaces to plant, clean, restore, and celebrate. Activities range from tree care and trash removal to flower planting, nature photography workshops, bird walks, family paddle boating, and movie nights. If you have been waiting for a reason to reconnect with the park down the block, this is your week.
What Happens During Love Your Park Week
Love Your Park Week is built around volunteer-led projects organized by more than 140 Park Friends groups across the city. Each group designs activities tailored to their specific park, which means no two sites look exactly the same. Some parks focus on invasive plant removal and mulching. Others host planting days, litter cleanups, or trail maintenance. The week also includes free and low-cost events designed for enjoying and exploring Philadelphia’s parks beyond the volunteer work — think guided hikes through the Wissahickon, archery sessions at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, Wednesday bird walks, and nature crafts timed to Mother’s Day weekend.
All ages are welcome, no experience or equipment is required, and tools and gloves are provided with registration. You can browse the full map and event list at loveyourpark.org and filter by date to fit your schedule. Registration is recommended since some events have limited capacity.
The Signature Event for Love Your Park Week
This year’s signature Love Your Park Week volunteer event takes place at Fotterall Square in North Philadelphia on Saturday, May 16, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Volunteers will plant trees and remove litter, and the event will also feature a DJ, free food, activities for kids, and a speaking program with elected officials, representatives from the City and Conservancy, and community partners. If you can only make one event during the nine-day stretch, this is the one that captures the full spirit of the initiative.
Love Your Park Week grew out of a 2008 Trust for Public Land study that quantified the economic impact of Philadelphia’s park system at $1.9 billion in collective wealth and direct savings through increased property values, tourism, and environmental benefits. The program has operated every spring since, turning that economic insight into tangible community action across more than 10,200 acres of public green space. In 2026 — as Philadelphia hosts the world for the Semiquincentennial — the condition and vitality of the city’s parks carry even more weight than usual.
Parks and Recreation Commissioner Susan Slawson put it directly: after a long winter, the city is ready to partner with the Park Friends groups to get public spaces ready for a historic spring and summer. The support behind Love Your Park Week comes from TD Bank, PECO, Greenberg Traurig, and Independence Blue Cross, and the coordination between the Conservancy, the City, and 140 volunteer-led neighborhood groups is the kind of civic infrastructure that makes Philadelphia’s community programming genuinely distinctive.
How to Get Involved in Love Your Park Week
Love Your Park Week runs May 9 through 17 with events happening every day across the city. Visit loveyourpark.org to find a project near you, register as a volunteer, or browse the free recreational events happening throughout the week. The Fairmount Park Conservancy also runs volunteer work days year-round and welcomes corporate groups through its stewardship program. Get involved and get active.
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