ASTORIA — A community group that organized to bring attention and funding to a rundown neighborhood playground will be honored for their advocacy Wednesday night.
The Friends of Astoria Heights Park, which has been working for the last two years to improve the playground at 30th Road and 45th Street, is one of two Queens organizations to earn an award from Partnerships for Parks, a program under the City Parks Foundation, this year.
The group is set to receive the "Community Parks Initiative award," which is given to "a developing community group that has succeeded in engaging new stewards through programming and service opportunities," organizers said.
Partnerships for Parks' annual awards ceremony recognizes some of the more than 1,000 volunteer groups across the five boroughs that tend to the city's green spaces.
"We're really appreciative of getting the award," said the group's founder, Lynn Kennedy. "We really put in a lot of time and energy and creativity into the park, so I think that we're honored to kind of be acknowledged in this way."
Kennedy started Friends of Astoria Heights Park in 2013 as an effort to help renovate the playground where she often took her young son. Cracked pavement, poor drainage and safety issues are some of the problems affecting the playground, according to locals.
Members of the group started a petition calling on the city to renovate the playground, appealing to Queens Community Board 1 for help.
Their efforts paid off. Last year, city officials allocated more than $1 million to make over the park. It later received additional funding through Mayor Bill de Blasio's Community Parks Initiative, which brought the entire budget for the renovation to $3.29 million.
In an announcement for its awards ceremony, Partnership for Parks singled out Friends of Astoria Heights Park for its efforts to create a "a cleaner, safer and more inspiring park space."
"The group has organized It's My Park clean-ups and has worked diligently to engage the community board, local politicians, and neighborhood residents in their efforts," Partnerships for Parks said in an announcement.
In addition to helping to secure funding, Friends of Astoria Heights Park has worked with local schools and other neighborhood groups to organize a number of events like potlucks, a book swap, yoga classes and other activities at the park.
"We feel like we've made a lot of progress," Kennedy said.
The group's already thinking about events to host in the park this spring, like plays, concerts and sports tournaments, and is currently working with the city to get stop signs installed at two entrances near the park, she added.
"I always remind myself why we started doing this, which was really about advocacy," she said. "We like to have a goal."
The other Queens group to be honored during the ceremony is Flushing-based Green Earth Urban Gardens, which will be receiving the "Golden Trowel" award for its beautification and urban gardening work.
