Over 50 mentors and mentees from our middle school mentoring program helped plant bottle brush shrubs in Battery Park on Saturday, April 23rd. While most parks are publicly owned by the city, Battery Park is maintained by The Battery Conservancy, privately funded since 1994 when it was established.

Mentors and mentees worked hand in hand with the Conservancy to shovel and de-soil five areas. Split into five groups, the mentoring pairs raked and dug up the top inches of soil and planted the shrubs into foot-deep holes–they even found some friendly earthworms in the process!

At the end, mentors and mentees had an hour break to explore the park and snack on assorted buns as a reward for their hard work. A tremendous thank you to the Conservancy staff for hosting us! We’ll definitely be back to check up on how the plants are growing!