We’ll head back to South Park to Spruce a traffic triangle at the convergence of S. Southern St., Dallas Ave. S., and 10th Ave. S. It’s in a very cool little residential neighborhood, just several blocks west behind South Park Plaza. There’s lots of ivy, blackberry, and weeds to attack, some pruning to do, and curb scraping. Hopefully we’ll get it all cleaned up and be able to spread some mulch as well.

Last week we got a lot of overgrown material off of the parking lot and curb areas under the bridge. There’s still much more where that came from, as well as accumulated dirt that sits down there. We’ll continue removing the brambles, butterfly bush, and other weeds, and I’ll bring wheelbarrows and shovels to scrape the concrete and relocate the dirt down there too to try and prevent as much growth this coming year.

Our first visit to my neighbor Mary’s home along the College Street Ravine went very well. We rung the trees of ivy, peeled it off the cyclone fence, raised the undercanopies on the trees for better access to the yard, and removed blackberries and other invasives. We’ll revisit this Monday for round two!

A Delridge neighbor following the group has been impressed by results we’ve been able to achieve in neighborhoods with focused and consistent efforts, and reached out to ask if we’d be willing to lean into the are between Holden and Willow along Delridge, and cross streets like Sylvan, Orchard, and Webster.

My neighbor Mary’s home backs up to the College Street Ravine, and her backyard has become overgrown with English ivy which has overtaken large trees on the hillside, engulfed the cyclone fence along the back of her property, and has covered her backyard.

We Spruced up the picnic area in the south end of Lincoln Park by Shelter #2 earlier this year. We’ll continue with that work—cleaning the overgrown planting areas and uncovering native plants. If its still looking good we’ll spread out removing other invasives and making our way down to the beach.

We’ll head back to south Seattle to wrap up a section of South Henderson we Spruced a few months back where we tidied up 7 tree wells. This week we’ll do a quick weeding session and mulch the cleared beds. If time permits we may do some additional Sprucing across the street.

This is an impromptu cleanup under the west end of the Bridge. We’ll focus on the area between the west-most parking lot and under the bridge to the east, I’ve been noticing all the weeds getting really tall around the bus stop, so we’ll concentrate on clearing out Butterfly Bush, ivy, weeds and other invasives that create line of sight hazards. Garbage pickup opportunities are also ever present.

Hey team, we’ll be collaborating on Friday with Stephanie from The Freewild Society, a small, outdoor, nature-based camp for elementary-aged kids. Stephanie is inviting kids and their families from her Summer camp, so it will be a fun group to work with.

We’ll head back to Charles Richey Sr. Viewpoint again along Constellation Beach and give some love to the area we worked pretty hard back in 2024. Parks & Rec will be working the other end of the beach with their crew, so it’ll be a tag-team event to Spruce the beach. Come join the fun!

We’ll head back to south Seattle to where we last Spruced up a section of the Mapes Trail with the Rainier Beach Action Coalition, just off of South Henderson Street—across from Rainier Beach High School. We’ll be continuing to work on removing weeds, spreading mulch, and hauling out our old cut material. We’ll then travel several blocks down Henderson to mulch the tree wells we hit in July as well.

A group member reached out about cleaning up again around Highland Park Playfield and Spray Park which we last did in 2023. If we make good enough progress we can also hit the elementary school.

Join us for a special back-to-school Sprucing event at Madison Middle School, requested by Madison’s PTA, all community members are welcomed to come give this neighborhood gem some love.

We'll join the Seattle-Nantes Sister City Association on Sprucing up Nantes Park on Saturday from 10am-noon. We'll be working on weeding and spreading wood chips in this little pocket park right along Admiral Way which celebrates our sister city of Nantes, France.

A group friend asked if we’d come and clean up along Highland Park Way which we tend to do at least once a year, and so it's probably due again. If it's like other main roads around West Seattle it may have recently been mowed by SDOT too and shredded everything that was in it.

We’ll head back to Hamilton Viewpoint this week with Parks & Rec to continue the maintenance we started last week. We’ll have a little more blackberry pulling and then mulch to spread around the exit bed. There will also be more Sprucing and litter pick up opportunities around the park.

We’ll head back up to north Seattle to Spruce with Lake City Business Alliance along 33rd Ave NE where we started last week. Last Wednesday we got a ton done, but we'll continue clearing planting beds of weeds, opening up the sidewalks, and hopefully spread another truckload of mulch. Trash picking will also be a much needed activity in the area.

We were reached out to by DNDA (Delridge Neighborhoods Development Association) for another collaborative cleanup along Longfellow Creek—specifically around 29th Ave SW & SW Brandon Street.

This will be a trash walking event in and around the Walking on Logs sculptures, and up the side of the bridge where SDOT recently mowed and the trash was shredded. There is a decent mowed path along most of the ramp, but other parts we may want to approach from 35th Ave side. This part of the event will be for sure-footed ACAers, others please feel free to join the area around the parking pull off.

Join us for a special back-to-school Sprucing event at Lafayette Elementary to help ready the campus for the upcoming school year. We’ve had productive back-to-school and end-of-year cleanups with ACA members and school families over the past several years—all community members are welcomed to come out and give this neighborhood gem some love.

Join us on Saturday, August 15 in the Little Saigon neighborhood! We’ll meet at Hoa Mai Park and send teams out in all directions to remove litter, spruce up our streets and build community together.

We’ll head back to my Forest Steward parcel in Schmitz Park for some seasonal Sprucing and watering as I get ready to host Green Seattle Partnership on a walk-thru to see how our restoration is going. We planted back in the Fall and we can water those plants and potentially carve further back into the park to open it up for more native plantings this wet season.

We’ll be heading back to Hamilton Viewpoint this week with Parks & Rec to continue the annual maintenance we’ve worked the past several years around the exit drive. We’ve worked this area multiple times over the years and we’ll ready it for an upcoming mulch drop leading into the wet season. There will also be litter pick up opportunities.

We’ll head back up to north Seattle to Spruce with Lake City Business Alliance along 33rd Ave NE, working on removing weeds, trimming back planting beds, opening up the sidewalks, and readying the area to receive mulch in an upcoming visit. Trash picking will also be a much needed activity in the area.

Dirt Corps reached out to see if our team would be interested in learning best practices for working out in parks and greenspaces. We’ll cover a range of topics starting at the old Admiral Congregational Church, and then walk (or drive) down to College Street Ravine to put this to practical use out in the woods.

Join us on Saturday, August 8 in the Othello neighborhood, we’ll meet at Othello Park and send teams out in all directions to remove litter, spruce up our streets and build community together.

We’ll collaborate with Birds Connect Seattle on a morning bird stroll, along the main trail off the Stevens entrance to the park. We’ll then do some easy ivy pulling up a social trail that Heather has picked out. This will be a fun, easy, and leisurely event. All are welcome to join in on the fun.

I’ll be leading a cleanup for 200+ REI team members at Gas Works Park, and setting them up for a successful event through the park, along the Burke Gilman, and up into the Fremont neighborhood. If any ACA teammates would like to help out or join in, I’d love to have you out, and we can amplify their efforts.

We’ll head up to north Seattle in the coming weeks to collaborate with Lake City Business Alliance on several Sprucing projects they’d like some help with. We’ll start by Sprucing up along 30th Ave NE, working on removing weeds, trimming back planting beds, opening up the sidewalks, and readying the area to receive mulch in an upcoming visit.

On Tuesday we'll head to South Park’s Junction area, one block south of the South Park Bridge. There’s a nice public art park that we’ve worked before, we’ll help kick Lewis off for working the area this coming week. The area actually looks better than in years past, but it could still use some love and there are some problem planting beds.