Cobbs Creek Park boasts basketball and tennis courts, green walking paths and a brand-new playground filled with children, families, friends, pets … and a lot of trash.
But the Cobbs Creek Park Ambassadors — armed with buckets, trash cans, pick-up tools, gloves, wire cutters and even chainsaws — are here to change that.
With less than two months’ worth of weekend clean-up events in 2024, the ambassadors have already recruited more than 86 volunteers in 11 cleanups to remove 4,080 pounds. That’s two tons of trash taken out of the West Philadelphia community space.
The crew is just getting started building on last year’s success. In 2023, they reached a milestone and collected more than 10 tons of trash from the park and creek with 122 cleanups and 538 volunteers.
The program has evolved into a formidable force against litter since co-founding ambassadors Rich Guffanti, 78, and Andrew Wheeler, 53, started organizing cleanups in 2018.
“I feel proud of our progress,” Wheeler said. “It is not only feeling an accomplishment of making the park and creek cleaner, but also it is about bringing people — college students, residents, and others — around a shared purpose. We are building community by caring for the community.”
The two long-time West Philly residents noticed the abundance of waste littering the park and decided to spring into action. Now, they’re greeted with encouraging waves and honks from passing cars and told the park is noticeably cleaner.
While Guffanti attributes his “obsessive personality defect re: trash disorder” and desire to be useful in retirement as motivation to clean up, Wheeler played tennis with his daughters in the park for many years and was disappointed by the trash sprawled in the area. He followed in the footsteps of his late mother, who was an urban planner in Portland, Oregon.
“The idea to build capacity and agency in the community is important to me, and we are doing this with our efforts,” Wheeler said.
By 2020, the pair realized they couldn’t tackle an entire park alone, and recruited their first ambassador, Temwa Wright. Four years later, ten ambassadors — volunteers who host monthly cleanups in three-block sections — cover more than half of the park and have collected the most trash since the program started.
“We have picked up more trash because we have grown our volunteer base,” Wheeler said. “Unfortunately, the demand to collect trash will be high, and we are meeting the demand by recruiting a greater supply of volunteers and ambassadors.”
Ambassador Margaret DiSanto runs a cleanup at Webster Street and South 63rd Street every third Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. This week, her group collected seven bags of trash and a litter basket from the woods behind the tennis courts and the recreational path along Cobbs Creek Parkway from Catherine Street to Christian Street.
The 60-year-old West Philly native grew up walking the park trails down to the Cobbs Creek Community Environmental Education Center, which used to be horse stables.
Now, she keeps the special place clean to encourage young people, including her grandchildren, to keep playing in the park like she once did.
“I can ride by any time of the day, and when I don’t see trash, I’m like, ‘Okay, the job is getting done, and I’m part of that,’” DiSanto said. “And I get to share that with my grandchildren, they come with me quite often when I clean up.”
Community building and organizing is a top priority. However, the ambassador program often struggles to maintain volunteers, as 85% come only once.
“What is discouraging is getting only one volunteer after sending an email to 1,250 people, posting a Facebook announcement that reaches 35,000 people, sending a text message to 60 people who have come twice before,” Guffanti said.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day draws a large portion of volunteers, but fewer volunteers come out in the winter weather overall. Half of the volunteers are local college students, so volunteer hours pick up in the fall and spring when school is in session.
Galen Xiang, 26, used to volunteer with ambassador Greg Seidel when he was a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Cobbs Creek means a lot to him, as he used to visit often and it was the research area for his thesis project. Now, he’s an environmental consultant in New Jersey.
The nice weather and his hope to make a noticeable aesthetic difference brought him to DiSanto’s Sunday cleanup.
“This kind of stuff can be contagious in a good way,” Xiang said. “If people driving by see that we’re out here cleaning up, taking care of our own environment and parks, then it hopefully fosters a culture of, we’re not gonna just litter all over the parks.”
Guffanti and Wheeler attend many, if not most, of the cleanups. Despite some frustrations with volunteer turnout and consistent trash accumulation, they have accomplished significant feats in sustainability and awareness.
“It is frustrating to see trash in the same place,” Wheeler said. “This means that people are intentionally littering from their cars or dumping trash. We keep going, though, knowing we are making a difference and an impact.”
At any cleanup, Guffanti will likely be cutting down excess invasive vines and discovering “legacy trash,” the litter that is usually hidden by greenery throughout the year but exposed during the winter.
He plays a pivotal role in leading the group, as he also stores the equipment for each cleanup and records detailed data of the litter collected to document the group’s progress.
Wheeler is a vital member of the group, too. Last year, he attended 15 cleanups hosted by the other ambassadors in addition to his own 12, and he hosts an annual potluck, leads monthly virtual meetings and keeps in touch with the nine other ambassadors, Guffanti said.
By the way, don’t be concerned if you see him walking around Cobbs Creek with a chainsaw — he’s probably just cutting down some overgrowth in the park.
The group doesn’t just throw everything away, either. Sometimes they repurpose it.
When they found a large crate floating in the creek, Wheeler painted it blue and the group turned it into a planter reading “Keep Cobbs Creek Beautiful” that sits next to the park tennis courts.
Cobbs Creek Ambassadors get supervision from Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, supplies and web support from the Fairmount Park Conservancy, notification of grant opportunities from the Clean Air Council and supplies from Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful.
They received $8,000 from four grants last year, keeping their organization financially sustained.
The program hopes to continue growing this year and looks forward to reaching yet another milestone.
“I don’t know if we could get to 20 tons of trash a year, but we are only constrained by the number of volunteers and organizational power in terms of having more cleanups,” Wheeler said.
