A true Glebe winter and the annual spring park cleanup! 

Rebecca Schweitzer and her mom Virginia posing with litter collected at last year’s park cleanup at Glebe Memorial Park 

A true Glebe winter and the annual spring park cleanup! 

By Angus McCabe 

Happy spring everyone! December through March saw the return of a true Ottawa winter in the Glebe. Ottawa takes great pride in being a winter city. This is reflected in measures we saw implemented this year – like the stairway leading into Central Park West from Bank Street being kept open and clear of snow all season long. Meanwhile, skaters made wonderful use of ice surfaces at Mutchmor field and Glebe Memorial Park (Glendale), thanks to dedicated volunteers at both locations. The Rink Rats at Glebe Memorial look forward to continuing their decades-old tradition of neighbourhood outdoor rink maintenance. We’d love to know your thoughts on how things went this year at Mutchmor rink. Is this something the community desires to see continue there? 

As we say goodbye to these joys of winter for another year, it is time to renew our spring efforts to keep the Glebe’s 13 beautiful city parks safe, clean, green and fun for residents young and old. 

The Glebe Community Association’s annual park cleanups, part of the City of Ottawa’s Spring Cleaning the Capital program will once again take place, this year on Saturday, May 3 starting at 10 a.m. (pouring rain date: Sunday, May 4). The Glebe Annex Community Association will be leading the cleanup of the Dalhousie South Park on the same date. 

For many years, neighbours have used this event as an opportunity to gather, combining some fun park play with a little bit of community service. If this sounds good to you, join with others and start organizing now. 

On the cleaning front, the main goal is to pick up litter. For parks with play areas, this includes giving the sand a rake to remove any dangerous items (to be carefully removed and safely contained by adults with gloves). In green areas, it is advisable to “leave” the leaves alone and let nature do its thing. 

If you can, bring along a rake, work gloves, a container (like a jar) and a few smaller, compostable bags to help consolidate (and safely store) any garbage found into one garbage bag’s worth (or hopefully much less) at each park (to minimize our use of larger single-use plastic bags). 

Come together with your friends, family and neighbours to the park cleanup near you, make some new acquaintances – and create some more wonderful neighbourhood moments and memories! 

See the listing of GCA Parks Committee contacts who plan to be on hand at the parks that morning. Always feel free to contact us at parks@glebeca.ca to get involved with and organize for this and other Glebe parks initiatives in the years to come. 

Angus McCabe is chair of the Glebe Community Association’s Parks Committee. 

Glebe and Glebe Annex Parks Cleanups