Saturday, January 19, 2019

The Committee to Restore Shepherd Parkway is now Ward 8 Woods


Since 2011, the Committee to Restore Shepherd Parkway has mobilized over 2,000 volunteers, removed over 50,000 pounds of trash from the park, and put improvement of the park on the agenda of National Park Service and DC government officials. 

As great as that is, there is still way too much trash, too many invasive species, no trails, no programs, and little signage. And, there are three other large chunks of forested parkland in Ward 8- Oxon Run Parkay, Suitland Parkway,  and Ft. Stanton Park- and they all suffer from the same problems. 

In July 2018, the Anacostia Coordinating Council obtained grant funding to give all four parks the kind of long-overdue TLC that Shepherd Parkway has received, and the Ward 8 Woods project was born. 

The work do be done is so vast and we've decided to incorporate Ward 8 Woods as a new, permanent nonprofit organization.   The work of the Committee to Restore Shepherd Parkway will continue as part of this new entity. 

Our crew of six Park Stewards are working two days a week throughout the winter,  removing trash and invasives species from all four areas. 

Please consider a donation to our GoFundMe campaign so that we can add more work hours and get more done. A little goes a long way:

$15 pays for one Park Steward to work one hour, during which time they will remove an average of 120 pounds of trash from the woods $45 pays for one Steward to work a 3-hour shift, removing an average of 460 pounds of trash. $90 pays for two Stewards to work a three hours shift. $225 pays for all five stewards to work a three hours shift and remove nearly a ton of trash. 

We also welcome volunteers to join us on the job whenever we are working. Contact Nathan at nbharrington@yahoo.com for the schedule.