FILE PHOTO
Gov. Charlie Baker
BY BRIDGET TURCOTTE
SAUGUS — Gov. Charlie Baker will lend a hand for Park Serve Day this weekend by helping to clean up Breakheart Reservation.
“By working together, generations of people will truly benefit from this worthwhile event,” said Baker in a statement.
The governor is expected to be at Breakheart Reservation between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Saturday afternoon, according to the Department of Recreation and Conservation (DCR).
The park will be among more than three dozen such projects including Marshview Park, Lynn/Nahant Beach and Red Rock Park at Lynn Shores Reservation and Revere Beach Reservation.
The statewide initiative is dedicated to a day of volunteer service. The community and the DCR staff get parks and beaches ready for summer by cleaning coastlines and trails, planting flowers, mowing, weeding, picking up litter and painting picnic tables.
The Breakheart cleanup is scheduled from 10 a.m. to noon and will mostly involve picking up trash around the popular spots of the 640-acre property, said Peter Rossetti, president of the Friends of Breakheart.
“It gives us a jumpstart in getting the parks open,” said Anthony Guthro of DCR.
The spring and summer months are the most popular for the park, said Guthro. The Pearce Lake Beach, which opens on the weekends starting Memorial Day and full-time in mid-June, draws about 500 people to the park daily and nearly 1,000 on a busy weekend, said Guthro.
Drinking water will be supplied at all DCR facilities where Park Serve Day projects are taking place. All equipment, including work gloves, will be provided by the DCR. Participants can bring their own gloves and tools as long as they are marked with the owner’s name. Volunteers are asked to wear sturdy shoes and work clothes and to bring sunscreen and insect repellent. Power tools are not allowed.
Bridget Turcotte can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @BridgetTurcotte.