Community service and cool jazz: A day at Forest Hills Park

Jazz at Forest Hills Park on Saturday, September 13th. (photo by Marjorie Share)

by Marlene Berlin

Last Saturday, September 13th, was a lovely day to be out enjoying one of our neighborhood’s most popular gathering places – and cleaning it up.

That’s how the day started for volunteers who pitched in at Forest Hills Park and Playground that morning. Then, a few hours later, jazz musicians performed for an appreciative audience at the park’s amphitheater.

Both events were organized by a Van Ness Main Street initiative: Good Clean Fun. The members of GCF’s founding committee are themselves volunteers, and the group’s activities include cleanups, events like the park’s Halloween Spooktacular, and the work that keeps them busy year-round: keeping DC agencies informed and engaged when park safety and maintenance issues crop up. One of their recent wins involves a fence between the basketball and tennis courts. It had been broken for well over a year..

The cleanup attracted volunteers from as far as Arlington. Kira, an 11th grader, brought her dad Ted along. She scoured the park for trash and earned some community service hours – a requirement of her high school. Leif, a senior at Jackson-Reed High School, was there for the same reason. Plus, he had lived a few blocks from the park all of his life, and has been volunteering at the cleanups since he was little.

Left image: Good Clean Fun founding member Tracy Zorpette, with Kira, Virginia, Leif, and an unnamed volunteer.
Right: GCF founding member Sarah Benitez.

Conrad and Lucia from Glover Park were out on Brandywine Street picking up the trash. They enjoy volunteering for events like these around the District.

Lucia and her son, Conrad.

Virginia Marentette, a resident of Forest Hills, also rolled up her sleeves to help out. A veteran of many park cleanups, she was once a member of a GCF predecessor: Friends of Forest Hills Playground.

A larger crowd came out that afternoon for the jazz concert at the park, featuring the Washington Conservatory Jazz Players.

Little kids ran around while the more adult fans swayed with the music.

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The weather was perfect, the mosquitos were not drawn to the rhythms, and all appeared to have a good time.

Forest Hills Connection – like Good Clean Fun – is a program of Van Ness Main Street. We maintain our editorial independence.