Beginnings
What began as an idea from Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. The city of Newark, often known as the Renaissance City, is home to the revitalization of the original county park system in the United States. Essex County Branch, Brook Park. They are revitalizing the park’s historic layout in collaboration with a local community of friends to make it more suitable for the active users that it sees today.
They are the Branch Brook Park Alliance, and they were established as a public-private collaboration in 1999. They provide their design knowledge and financial assistance to assist Essex County in its continuing stewardship efforts.
New ball fields, extensive cherry tree plantings, and the restoration of historic park sites are some projects that the collaboration has already completed. These projects lay the groundwork for total rejuvenation. Essex County Branch Brook Park is the site of yearly events, sporting competitions, and musical performances. These events, like the park’s annual world-famous Cherry Blossom Festival, draw thousands of participants.
You can contribute to revitalizing their park by becoming a sponsor of the Branch Brook Park Alliance and volunteering your time there.
Mission
Restoring the Park
- to bring a landscape work of art back up to its original level of functionality and aesthetic appeal.
- To recruit forward-thinking individuals who will support and maintain their endeavor.
Renewing their Spirit
- To include residents of all ages and walks of life in the continuing process of revitalizing and maintaining their park.
- To instill a feeling of ownership and pride in one’s surroundings across a whole community.
Elevating Health & Wellbeing
The Essex County Branch Brook Park serves as a potent impetus for various types of physical exercise and community involvement. Everyone is welcome to participate in the regular low-to-moderate intensity physical exercise they have planned. Their community health initiatives, administered via Care of the Park, are geared toward boosting participants’ levels of daily physical activity while simultaneously reducing their intake of sugary drinks. Keep scrolling if you’re interested in learning more about their programs.
Youth Employment Growth
Human resource development for young people is a framework that requirements for the healthy growth of young people, including competencies essential for adult success. This is done to ensure that young people have the best possible chance of becoming productive adults. They are committed to offering educational services via their Park Literacy Leaders program and job development opportunities for young people through their Park Ambassador program. Please indicate your interest in volunteering and assisting with these initiatives below if you can do so.
Park Ambassador
Every summer, the City of and the Newark Youth One-Stop Career Center provide youth workforce development to a total of 20 young people residing in the Newark area. This is the first time that most participants have ever had a paid job in their lives. Park Ambassadors must spend at least four days each week immersed in the natural environment, where they may build vital employment skills while learning about gardening and environmental care. After completing the program, participants emerge with a heightened awareness of their responsibilities, an enhanced feeling of achievement, and the abilities necessary to be successful in the subsequent stage of their lives.
Park Literacy Leaders:
They are assisting and motivating the growth of young people in the community via their collaboration with the Newark Public Library Branch Brook branch. Participate in a group of adult readers who positively influence children’s lives by reading aloud to children and teenagers in the local community. Practices like reading aloud may help you become a better reader. A child’s listening abilities, in addition to their focus and ability to focus for more extended periods. All of these are skills that can be developed.
Essex County Rutgers Master Gardeners.
The Agricultural Research and Experiment Station of Rutgers University in New Jersey (NJAES)) Cooperative Extension relies on trained volunteers known as Rutgers Master Gardeners to achieve its mission of providing horticulture-related educational events and information to the general public. Anybody can become a Rutgers Master Gardener if interested in gardening and dedicated to community service. Any level of familiarity with or training in gardening is superfluous to learning more.
Who they are
The Community Ambassadors of the Branch Brook Park Alliance are a network of professionals who help without expecting anything in return for the continued management and activation of the Essex County Branch Brook Park. The group’s members are enthusiastic supporters of the cause in terms of protecting, activating, and sustaining the space via charitable giving and voluntary service.
What they do
The participating members of Branch Brook Park Alliance support the organization in a way that is congruent with the organization’s vision, purpose, and objectives. This support is provided via three committees.
Programs Committee
Volunteers from their team are helping Branch Brook Park Alliance shine a light on current programs so that more people may take advantage of the opportunities. In addition, They conceive, develop, and carry out initiatives that align with the community’s interests. Examples include art and wellness fairs and events focused on physical fitness.
Committee on Digitization
The Branch Brook Park Alliance receives technical help from its group of dedicated volunteers. They are using technology in various ways to showcase the historical value of the park and prominent elements such as the formal gardens. This includes the development of new tools for the website as well as the use of social media.
Survey Committee
The voices of the community on several issues are being gathered with the assistance of their team of volunteer members of Branch Brook Park Alliance. They can aid in making informed judgments about how best to meet the community’s requirements by using data and analytics.
Gardens
During his travels through Newark and Essex County, the famous landscape architect and designer Frederick Law Olmsted, who was also responsible for creating Central Park in New York City, selected a location that would later become Branch Brook Park. Branch Brook Park was supposed to be the “great central park” for the city of Newark, and Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, his business partner, had the idea for it. They were aware of the fast expansion and transformation in the United States cities throughout the 19th century. They believed that all people, whatever their station in society, were entitled to clean air, areas of peace, and the beauty that can only be provided by nature, and that this belief was expressed in the parks they constructed.
There are a total of five main zones that make up the formal gardens in Branch Brook Park. These districts are Olmsted, Mendelssohn, Kiyo Path Meander, Kiyofumi Sakaguchi Memorial Grove, and Concourse Hill. Visitors to the park who enter from Clifton Avenue are greeted with the lush foliage of Concourse Hill, which includes a rose garden, a woodland garden, and an urban farm garden bed. Branch Brook Lake serves as a backdrop for the remaining sections of the gardens, which are situated along the eastern edge of the Southern Division.
For more information, visit their website or call (973) 969-1189