In partnership with the nonprofit New Yorkers 4 Parks (NY4P) which each year organizes the cityside “Daffodil Project,” in honor of various New Yorkers who have died, students of two local public schools based in Norwood came together on Nov. 9 to plant 400 donated daffodil bulbs.

 

Established in 2001, according to NY4P, The Daffodil Project is the largest volunteer effort in New York City history, and serves three purposes. It is a living memorial to the victims of 9/11 and COVID-19, a celebration of the New Yorkers championing parks equity in their communities, and a catalyst for citywide civic engagement advancing NY4P’s call for one percent of the City’s budget to be allocated to New York City parks.

As part of the citywide Daffodil planting initiative, New Yorkers 4 Parks, an independent, nonprofit organization which according to its website, for 100 years, has championed quality open space for all New Yorkers, works with local groups around the City on the bulb-planting project.

 

Local residents and husband and wife, Sirio and Heather Guerino, who represent Guerinos Against Graffitti* (GAG) and Crusaders for Children’s Rights, respectively, coordinated the event in Norwood.

 

Crusaders for Childrens Rights aims to make life safer for victims of domestic violence and their children, while GAG works to have graffiti-free neighborhoods in The Bronx and in all areas of New York City affected by vandalized graffiti. Sirio Guerino explained that NY4P gave the two Norwood-based groups 1,000 bulbs, of which he gave 400 to M.S. 80, along with 12 trowels to assist with the digging and planting.

He told Norwood News, “It’s in honor of the 9/11 victims. Every year, they plant daffodils for the people who died on September 11th.” Guerino added that hundreds more bulbs were planted at the entrance of, and alongside, the 52nd Precinct station house on Webster Avenue in Norwood, located adjacent to P.S. / M.S. 20, and that all the bulbs were expected to begin blooming in 2024.

 

According to Fran Hoffman of M.S. 80, students of both P.S. 280, located at 3202 Steuben Avenue and M.S. 80, located at 149 East Mosholu Parkway North, worked in shifts throughout the morning on Thursday, Nov. 9, to complete the planting task.

 

Hoffman, who helped organize the event, noted how M.S. 80 principal, Kenyatta Williams, and P.S. 280 principal, James Week, “worked together for the community campus.”

 

She added, “I put this together for both schools to interact with each other and become one campus through the planting.”

New Yorkers for Parks also conducts research and develops tangible policy recommendations around its findings related to park development, management and sustainability.

 

Hoffman said Williams ordered hot chocolate and donuts from Dunkin’ Donuts for all of the children who participated in the event when their “shift” was completed. She concluded, “It was a great morning of planting and land learning.”

 

Read our previous related stories on this topic here, here, and here.

 

*Síle Moloney contributed to this story.