Emeryville skate park gets a little help from its many friends

On Sunday morning at Joseph Emery Skate Park, the sound of skateboards rolling over concrete mixed with the rustling of garbage bags and the click of trash grabbers. Equipped with work gloves, buckets and community spirit, city leaders and volunteers gathered for Emeryville’s “Love Your Parks” cleanup. 

Pat Ordonez-Kim, who enjoys the park with her dog, Coco, said keeping the parks in good shape is important because the city doesn’t have a lot of open land. Alongside her husband, Ordonez-Kim collected what she called a surprising amount of trash, including car window glass, cigarette butts and a broken jar.  

“Coco and I use these paths almost everyday,” Ordonez-Kim said.

This park also is a familiar spot for Amelia Mango, who often walks her corgi, Otter, there. “It is nice to keep it nice-looking,” she said, joining the volunteer effort with a couple dozen others.

Ordonez-Kim and Mango cleaned with grabbers and buckets provided by the city. They picked up papers and plastic bottles from the bushes and cleaned up trash along the edges. Another volunteer found a knife behind a skate ramp. Light refreshments were handed out to volunteers, as skaters showed off some tricks. 

The idea for the “Love Your Parks” clean up campaign came up during a Parks and Recreation Committee meeting last November. The goal was to supply residents with gear and ask them to help care for the parks. 

Getting started

The initiative launched on Valentine’s Day, with a cleanup at the Joseph Emery Skate Park and 32 volunteers. A cleanup at Temescal Creek Park followed on May 2, and included a treasure hunt to boost participation. Saturday’s cleanup marked the city’s third.

“Nearly a year into the initiative, we’ve been encouraged by the community response,” April Foran, city spokesperson, said in an email. “Residents have participated in two clean up events, helped raise awareness about park care, and reinforced the committee’s broader goal of creating opportunities for residents to take an active role in improving and enjoying public spaces.”  

Emeryville has roughly 17 public green spaces, with about 10 primary parks as well as several mini-parks and greenways, all maintained by the Public Works Department. City officials emphasize that while the city handles the routine maintenance, volunteers play an essential role in keeping the recreational spaces clean. 

Foran said the “Love Your Parks” campaign plans to add more parks, including Marina Park, Shoebird Park, Stanford Park.

Returning to Joseph Emery Skate Park was a deliberate choice because of how frequently the site is used, said Colin McClure, chair of the Parks and Recreation Committee, who was part of Saturday’s clean-up crew.

“This skate park is a really unique resource for a community of our size,” McClure said. “It’s a very heavily utilized park because it is on a retail corridor, and as such, it tends to generate quite a lot of waste.” 

Emeryville Planning Commissioner Jordan Wax said it’s a misconception to blame the trash on skaters, given the park’s location. “This is one of the only parks in the area where people can take their food, so they leave a lot of trash here,” Wax said.

Wearing gloves and carrying a large trash bag, Carlin Dacey, vice chair of the Parks and Recreation Committee, said she enjoys meeting new people at the cleanups. Dacey lives by the Emeryville Greenway, and she often takes her 11-month-old daughter and and the family dog to Doyle Hollis Park. 

“Keeping the parks clean is super important to me and my family,” she said.

For Beatrice Blackwell, an Emery High School student, helping out was a way to take care of a place popular with students. “It feels really good to actually take care of the space we use,” Blackwell said. 

The park is where Chase Munson, a skater, likes to play — and where he wants his child to play, too. That’s why he volunteered with the cleanup.

“I’ve got a kid now, you know, I want to teach him how to skate,” he said. “But it can be a little dicey here sometimes with trash and people partying. So cleaning up this space is very important to me.”

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