Six parks in Goleta are up for adoption by the public, including Armstrong Park, Santa Barbara Shores, Brandon Open Space, San Miguel Park, Koarts Open Space, and Winchester I. The city’s Adopt-a-Park Program was piloted by the Rotary Club of Goleta Noontime in 2019 to lend some civic pride to the clean parks and open spaces beloved by the Goleta community.
“We have been cleaning up Jonny D. Wallis Park in Old Town Goleta since right before COVID started,” said Scott Phillips, a past president of the noontime club. He and his volunteers pick up litter, clean the tables, sweep walkways, and serve as “another set of eyes” to alert the city to graffiti or a homeless camp. As well, one of the city crew members tasked with maintaining the park told Phillips, “He would guess we saved his crew probably about six hours of work that he was able to allocate elsewhere, such as fixing potholes, or other things that Public Works needed to attend to.”
The program opens avenues to meet other residents, Phillips said. “The neighbors tell us thank you for helping keep their park clean, and they appreciate us.”
The first step to Adopt-a-Park is to fill out a form on the city website and to claim the park to adopt. The work takes roughly two hours a month and pays off in many different avenues.
“This is an opportunity for us all to work together in some fashion to ‘love where we live,’” Phillips said.
Correction: The group that started the park adoption program is the Rotary Club of Goleta Noontime, of which Scott Phillips was president in 2016-2017.
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