As spring cleaning goes, it’s a massive project. Volunteers are fanning out throughout the Rock Creek watershed this month to pick up litter. Rock Creek Conservancy’s annual Extreme Cleanup started as an Earth Day weekend event at several sites. These days, the Extreme Cleanup takes place over an entire month, and one of the kickoff events is at the picnic area across Tilden Street from Peirce Mill.
Volunteers called Stream Team Leaders select the locations, register the events with Rock Creek Conservancy, and are given all the supplies they need. The Conservancy even arranges for trash pickup. To learn how to organize these cleanups, attend RCC’s virtual Stream Team Leader training on April 18th.
Friends of Hearst Park is hosting its own cleanup on April 6th.
Subtract invasive weeds, add native blooms. Rock Creek Conservancy’s invasive weed removal events are an ongoing type of cleanup. And they continue this month under the guidance of certified Weed Warriors like Kathy Sykes and John Burwell. Two of their project areas – at Reservation 630 West and in the wooded area beyond the Politics and Prose parking lot (see Broad Branch/NOTA) – are on the Conservancy events calendar.
Every weekend through April 20th, Sykes is leading her weed-pulling events in the mornings, then in the afternoons, lending her Master Garden expertise to Van Ness Main Street’s pollinator planting program along Connecticut Avenue. All ages and abilities are welcome to help plant a few blooms, or several. Here are the dates and locations, and information on how to sign up.
Shop used books and local makers. Van Ness Main Street’s new Second Saturdays pop-up market series makes its second appearance on Saturday, April 13th. Carpe Librum will be selling used books and music outside 4340 Connecticut Avenue, and as many as eight local artisans will be selling their wares inside, Bianca + Jean and fashion designer Ruby Douglas included. This pop-up will continue to pop up on the second Saturday of every month through November.
Explore more of Peirce Mill’s past. Friends of Peirce Mill and a Howard University PhD candidate have been researching about the life of William Beckett, who as an enslaved man managed Joshua Peirce’s nursery business before and after Emancipation. They’ll be telling us what they’ve learned at an April 20th conversation at Peirce Mill, followed by a reception at Klingle Mansion. There will be a free shuttle bus between the two locations.
The farmers markets return. The UDC Van Ness farmers market begins a new season on Saturday, April 27th, with new hours and a new student manager. (The New Morning Farm market at Sheridan School is set to return on May 4th.)
Love that big band swing? The UDC, Howard University and University of Maryland jazz bands converge on UDC’s Theater of the Arts on April 29th to celebrate Duke Ellington’s birthday with the Calvin Jones BIG BAND Jazz Festival.
Forest Hills Connection is an editorially independent program of Van Ness Main Street.
Leave a Reply