A group of park-loving volunteers keeps Cobbs Creek beautiful

A 1970s-era stereo receiver. Red leather boots. Nine fully intact eggplants.

These are just a few of the unexpected objects the Cobbs Creek Ambassadors have come across while cleaning up Cobbs Creek Park in West Philadelphia.

But most of what they pick up is just typical litter: bottles, cans, food wrappers, old tires. And the volunteers behind this grassroots organization have picked up tons of it — an average of about 9.5 tons of trash each year, in fact — since starting up in 2018.

Cobbs Creek Ambassadors was co-founded by Rich Guffanti and Andrew Wheeler, acquaintances who first volunteered together building a wall in the Spruce Hill Bird Sanctuary. They enjoyed each other’s company and volunteered again as a duo to clear gutter leaves along Cobbs Creek Park between Catherine and Christian streets. This effort became a regular meet-up.

“We worked there every Saturday starting in late December 2017, and soon the neighbors recognized us,” Guffanti says. “We got our first volunteer in March of 2018, and then our first ambassador, Temwa, in 2019.”

The cleanup effort began to take on a life of its own, growing from a few people to a more structured community organization. Neighbors recruited other ambassadors, and Guffanti began collecting the volunteers’ names and email addresses. With the help of social media-savvy volunteers, Guffanti and Wheeler started using Google Groups and Facebook to communicate with the group, which now has 12 committed volunteers and a list of 100 occasional helpers.

We worked there every Saturday starting in late December 2017, and soon the neighbors recognized us.”

— Rich Guffanti, Cobbs Creek Ambassadors co-founder

 

The City of Philadelphia took notice, as well.

“Philadelphia Parks & Recreation provides us with guidance and has made repairs to the tennis and basketball fences in the park,” notes Guffanti. “They’ve sent lawn mowing crews and tree crews to remove fallen trees, and seasonal workers that help remove the trash. The Fairmount Park Conservancy provided us with publicity by posting our cleanups on their event calendar and banners we used for ‘Love Your Park’ cleanups.”

Cobbs Creek is a large park — more than 850 acres threaded with a nearly 4-mile trail. The ambassadors can only cover a small fraction of the acreage, and they focus on the areas close to the curb. They divide up the work between 10 zones, stretching from Market Street in the north to Woodland Avenue in the south. Each zone is cleaned up once a month, with help from volunteer groups, often from universities and high schools. Core members and volunteers also meet monthly via Zoom to share updates, discuss orders of business and hear from guest speakers from area organizations such as the Darby Creek Valley Association and East Coast Greenway Alliance.

In 2023, Cobbs Creek Ambassadors deepened its neighborhood connections by launching the Summer Festival, a now-annual event at the park featuring free food, live music, bounce houses, bird and mushroom walks, native plant giveaways and more.

Guffanti notes that the personal connections with the neighbors have faded a bit as the ambassadors expanded the cleanup area to include the whole park. And, he admits, it can be discouraging to see new trash reappear in the areas that were recently cleaned. Still, he and Wheeler and the rest of the cleanup crew remain committed to the cause.

“I have a personality flaw,” Guffanti jokes. “I hate a mess and love to see it straightened out.”