Since 2001, the Bronx River Alliance has been dedicated to restoring and safeguarding the Bronx River and ensuring its integration with the community at large.
For centuries, the 23-mile-long Bronx River has become a dumping ground for industrial and residential waste. Grassroots efforts to revitalize it began in 1974 with Bronx River Restoration, a small band of community activists. Their efforts strengthened in the ’90s when the Bronx River Working Group brought together more than 60 community organizations, public agencies and businesses in order to restore New York’s only freshwater river. In 2001, the Bronx River Alliance was then formally created as a permanent nonprofit dedicated to river and greenway restoration.
“The Bronx River Alliance serves as a coordinating voice for the Bronx River,” said Volunteer Program Assistant Jennifer Seda. “We work in partnerships to protect, improve and restore the Bronx River corridor. Our goal is to make the river healthy and an ecological, recreational, educational and even economic resource for the communities through which the river flows.”
The Alliance, which stewards primarily the eight miles of the river that lie within the Bronx, works with a number of local partners and nonprofits.
Concrete Plant Park, once an abandoned concrete plant, is a collaborative effort between the Alliance, the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, and the Concrete Friends volunteer group. There, the Alliance also maintains the park’s “Food Forest,” a 24/7 collaborative community space providing free vegetables and native herbs.
Another collaborative project includes Soundview Park — the biggest park that the Alliance manages. There, The Bronx is Blooming, an environmental nonprofit focused on youth leadership, helps with park restoration while the Friends of Soundview Park stewards a Butterfly Meditation Garden.
Seda also emphasizes the Alliance’s collaboration with all levels of government.
“When it comes to different parks, we always collaborate with our elected officials,” she said. “They’re in these spaces, these parks are their neighborhoods.”
As a volunteer program assistant, Seda’s work involves hosting and promoting volunteer events in collaboration with the Alliance’s various departments. She plans volunteer events based on the needs of the Alliance’s parks, such as litter removal, river cleanups and maintaining the gardens.
“My job is outreaching to the community, outreaching to volunteers, to folks who know and don’t know about us,” Seda said. “I’m in charge of making sure our volunteer opportunities are visible and the other opportunities we have, such as making sure our event is on our website, our flyers are in our parks and our events are in our local libraries or our newsletters.”
Bronx River Alliance welcomes volunteers of all skill levels and offers a number of ways to get involved. One includes the advisory team boards, virtual meetings where people can get department updates and have a say in what best serves the Alliance’s mission. There are three teams: the Eco Team, the Greenway Team (which both meet quarterly) and the Foodway Team (which meets monthly).
One upcoming project Seda is looking forward to is “Weeding and Reading.” The idea for the event came up when Seda and a coworker went to see “1.5 Million,” a film about illiteracy in the Bronx. The event invites families to attend, encouraging the adults to weed invasive species while the children are read to.
“I’m excited about it because it’s something new and something that came from a great film,” said Seda.
Christina Mahle, a retired physician and a volunteer, first found the Alliance in late 2020 through the NYC Parks Department’s volunteer group list.
“New York parks are particularly important because most of us don’t have yards or even balconies,” Mahle said. “My motivation for volunteering is a combination of interest in the environment and interest in a type of social justice for everybody to have access to parks.”
Last summer, Mahle started helping Seda with reporting to the Parks and Recreation Department and data entry. Mahle still does outdoor volunteer work, including helping with an upcoming water quality testing program.
Mahle’s experience with the Bronx River Alliance has been positive, and she described the staff and volunteers as terrific.
“I like doing things outdoors and in the office, doing something that I find important and interesting and, therefore, rewarding,” she said. “I’m learning about the many aspects that you have to worry about in maintaining and improving the whole area along the Bronx River and the river itself.”
More information regarding volunteer opportunities can be found on the Alliance’s website, bronxriver.org and Instagram (@bronx_river). Seda also encourages people interested to reach out to her email, [email protected].
