Southwest Corridor Park


Summer/Fall 2017 Southwest Corridor Park Updates


PMAC Annual Meeting: November 1, 2017

View as PDF | PPTX



New t-shirts celebrate the Southwest Corridor Park

As an outgrowth of the mini-grant initiative, PMAC, with the Southwest Corridor Park Conservancy, designed and printed t-shirts for youth programs participants, along with some additional t-shirts for adult volunteers. PMAC volunteer Blake Snell worked with Just Joe Graphics, to contribute three different designs, communicating the diverse ways people experience the park, with the motto "Connecting neighbors from Forest Hills to Back Bay." So far, the t-shirts are having the desired goal of prompting conversation and awareness of the park. For example, children from the USES Children's Art Center program wore their new t-shirts while on a scavenger hunt in the Southwest Corridor Park, with many neighbors noticing and appreciating the shirts and the connection with the park. Children who gardened in the children's garden at Bromley Heath proudly wore their new t-shirts and talked about what they knew about the Southwest Corridor Park. Southwest Corridor Park Conservancy volunteers are receiving t-shirts, as well, as we meet up on garden days.

t-shirt design - wheelbarrow t-shirt design - skyline t-shirt design - playground

Mini-grant programs - From Art to Zumba

For the second summer, the Southwest Corridor Park Management Advisory Committee, in partnership with Northeastern University and the Southwest Corridor Park Conservancy, sponsored mini-grants to support youth and family programming in the Southwest Corridor Park. Six mini-grants were given for summer 2017. The mini-grants are designed to support quality youth and family programming and to raise awareness of the Southwest Corridor Park, nurturing a "next generation" of park leadership. Mini-grants supported:

Southwest Corridor Park Conservancy - Park Stewardship

One of the best-known features of the Southwest Corridor Park is the array of gardens maintained by volunteers. In partnership with DCR, the Southwest Corridor Park Conservancy coordinates a network of park stewards who maintain specific gardens within the park and a series of volunteers days for larger park projects. Volunteers come from the neighborhoods (South End/Back Bay, JP, Jackson Sq.) and from BostonCares, Northeastern University and many corporate groups.

A highlight this summer: while the nearby Christian Science Church is repairing and restoring the Christian Science Plaza, they donated perennials from their gardens to the Southwest Corridor Park Conservancy. One Saturday morning in July, the neighborhood was dotted with gardeners and wheelbarrows full of plants, transporting plants to the park. These plants are now found in gardens around the park, as very welcome additions to the landscape.

Did you know? SWCPC volunteers tracked over 2,000 hours in 2016 and have tracked 1848.25 volunteer hours so far in 2017. (Actually many more hours.... just not all tracked yet.)


[Volunteers - please visit http://swcpc.org/volunteerhours.asp to record volunteer hours. You can record hours for each day you work or enter an estimate weekly, monthly, or for the whole season.]

Hymn to the Park - the Southwest Corridor

By Curtis Mitchell

What do you have to gripe about?!
Things are mostly like days of yore
Along the Southwest Corridor.
Hand-in-hand they traipse in galore
Showing love, showing affection -
Along the route of the Southwest Corridor.
Adults and children riding on all sorts of wheels - and more,
Along the Southwest Corridor.
Bands, picnics, frolic like never done to the core
All this along the Southwest Corridor.
Here a dog, there a dog, some big, some small - what more?
Along the Southwest Corridor.
Flowers and plants - some never even seen before -
Exotic, mundane, all
Over the Southwest Corridor.
Little babes riding in strollers and more
With laughs, giggles by the score . . . .
It can and does go on and on within this dreamland park
Called the Southwest Corridor.

Curtis Mitchell shared this poem with a SWCP volunteer, sharing also that he is currently homeless and considers the Southwest Corridor Park a favorite place to be. As much as Bostonians often gripe about city living, this poem is a thoughtful "hymn" to the neighborliness found within the park.




Community Garden Coordinators Sign-in