MLK Day of Service
Cooper River Park Invasive Plants Removal
Monday, January 15, 2018 (9:00AM – 12:00PM)
This will be a rain/snow or shine event.
Cooper River Park in Haddon Township, near Cuthbert Blvd.
Meeting place is 321 South Park Dr. Plenty of parking for school bus and private vehicles in gravel parking lot on South Park Drive at base of Bradford Ave.
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Why: Invasive plants negatively affect our forests, parks and open space. They do not provide the food source and habitat the area’s wildlife depend on and reduce plant diversity by crowing-out native species. Trash negatively affects wildlife also, and must be removed.
This is a joint event with Boy Scout Troop #179.
Volunteers will be trained to identify the common non-native plant species that have over-taken the lakefront riparian buffers. Volunteers will be provided hand tools and heavy work gloves to cut the multiflora rose, Japanese knotweed and mile-a-minute vine as low to the ground as possible. In the spring, we will plant bare root native oaks and willows to try and out-compete those nasty non-natives from battling back. We will bag the cut vegetation for disposal. Trash collection is also part of the activity for those that should not handle tools or be deep in the brush.
WARNING – these invasive plants are “beasts” in that they are thorny! This means in in the literal sense, not in that they just have bad attitudes. Volunteers will be provided heavy-duty work gloves, but must wear rugged and warm pants and coat. Troop 179 will also provide plenty of hot chocolate to warm their innards while providing plenty of work to do, to warm their outards.
