COVID notice: All of our events will follow the latest COVID protocols. All will require masks and physical distancing, and most will have attendance limits with email pre-registration required. All events are subject to change or cancellation due to COVID.

See the individual events in our Calendar for more information and logistics. All events are family-friendly and free to pre-registered participants. We hope to see you in the park!

Friends of Glen Providence Park
2021 Schedule of Events

10th Anniversary History & Nature Walk with Marcia Tate & Stephanie Gaboriault
Saturday, January 30, 2:00-4:00pm
Meet at State Street entrance
Rain, snow, or shine

Love Your Park Walk with Chris McNichol
Saturday, February 20, 10:00am-12:00pm
Meet at 3rd & West Street entrance
Rain, snow, or shine

CRC Streams Clean-up
Saturday, March 20, 9:00-11:00am
Meet at State Street entrance
Rain or shine

Nature Walk with Rick Ray
Saturday, April 10, 1:30-3:00pm
Entrance TBA
Rain or shine

Spring Bird Walk with Dave Eberly
Saturday, May 15, 8:00-10:00am
Meet at 3rd & Kirk Lane entrance
Rain or shine

2021 Arts in the Park!
We are delighted to hold the concerts this year that were postponed from 2020 due to COVID. See our Arts in the Park announcement for details, and our Calendar for individual listings.
All Saturdays, 5:00-6:30, with Sunday rain dates:

• Soul & Jazz Pop Fusion with Danie Ocean on June 26
• Rhythm & Soul with Paul Downie & Friends on July 10
• Charming & Virtuosic Classical Guitar with the Kossler Duo on August 7
• African Folkloric Performance Art with Malidelphia on September 11

National Public Lands Day Plantings 
Saturday, October 2, 9:00–12:00 noon
Location TBD
Rain date Sunday, October 3

Green Friday Walk with Holly Hoffmann & Aura Lester
Friday, November 26, time tba — RESCHEDULED to Saturday, December 4
Meet at State Street entrance
Drizzle, snow, or shine

Christmas Bird Count
Saturday, December 18, 8:30-10:30am
Meet at 3rd & West Street entrance
Rain, snow, or shine

Keep Media Green will be holding a spring volunteer event on Saturday, April 24 at 10:00am, with Glen Providence Park as one of the locations.

The Great Media Easter Egg Hunt could not be held this year by Media Lions & McCarrin Chiropractic. It’s the park’s longest-running event, held annually since 1954, until it was canceled in 2020 & 2021 due to COVID.

Updates:

• Start time for April’s nature walk updated on 3-19-2021
• Date for National Public Lands Day updated on 4-6-2021, and changed back(!) on 4-15-2021
• Arts in the Park concerts added on 5-25-2021! Also noted that the Egg Hunt could not be held.

See the individual events in our Calendar for more information and logistics. All events are free, family-friendly, and open to the public – we hope to see you in the park!

Friends of Glen Providence Park
2020 Schedule of Events

Schedule subject to change – please check back to confirm times, details, and meeting locations.

UPDATE: Covid-19 cancelations and postponements are noted below.

Winter Discovery Walk with Mike Rolli
Sunday, January 26, 1:00-3:00pm
Meet at State Street entrance
Rain, snow, or shine

Love Your Park Walk with Chris McNichol
Saturday, February 15, 10:00am-12:00pm
Meet at 3rd & West Street entrance
Rain, snow, or shine

Geology Walk with Charles Randall
Saturday, March 7, 2:00-4:00pm
Meet at 3rd & West Street entrance
Rain, snow, or shine

CRC Streams Clean-up – POSTPONED
Saturday, April 4, 9:00-10:30am
Meet at State Street entrance
Rain or shine

Spring Bird Walk with Dave Eberly – CANCELED
Saturday, May 9, 8:00-10:00am
Meet at 3rd & Kirk Lane entrance
Rain or shine

Arts in the Park: Kossler Duo – POSTPONED TO JUNE 2021
Saturday, June 27, 5:00-6:30pm
Main entrance
Rain date Sunday, June 28

Arts in the Park: Paul Downie & Friends – POSTPONED TO 2021
Saturday, July 11, 5:00-6:30pm
Main entrance
Rain date Sunday, July 12

Arts in the Park: Danie Ocean – POSTPONED TO 2021
Saturday, August 22, 5:00-6:30pm
Main entrance
Rain date Sunday, August 23

Arts in the Park: Malidelphia – POSTPONED TO 2021
Saturday, September 12, 5:00-6:30pm
Main entrance
Rain date Sunday, September 13

National Public Lands Day – POSTPONED
Saturday, October 3, 9:00–12:00 noon
Location TBD
Rain date Sunday, October 4

Wicked Plants & Ghost Walk with Marcia Tate & Stephanie Gaboriault – POSTPONED TO 2021
Saturday, October 31, time tba — Glen Providence’s 85th Anniversary!
Location tba
Drizzle, snow, or shine

Green Friday Walk with Holly Hoffmann & Aura Lester
Friday, November 27, time tba
Meet at State Street entrance
Drizzle, snow, or shine

Christmas Bird Count
Saturday, December 19, 8:00-10:00am
Meet at 3rd & West Street entrance
Rain, snow, or shine

And don’t forget the Great Media Easter Egg Hunt held by Media Lions & McCarrin Chiropractic – it’s the park’s longest-running event, held annually since 1954! This year’s date is Saturday, April 4 at 11:00am (sharp!), State Street entrance. – CANCELED

For National Public Lands Day*, the Friends of Glen Providence Park will again plant native trees and shrubs in the glen. This is our 8th annual planting project, working to improve wildlife habitat, reduce erosion, and beautify the park! 

Native Tree & Shrub Planting!

Saturday, October 5
rain date Sunday, October 6
9:00-12:00noon
Glen Providence Park – Kirk Lane entrance
Kirk Lane & Third Street, Upper Providence, PA

Our planting day is one of our most popular and fun events! We are incredibly grateful to Delaware County Parks & Recreation for providing funds for this project, and to the Delaware County Conservation District for the use of its Conservation Planting Trailer and supplies.

To help us plan our time effectively, and to plan for refreshments, we ask that you RSVP for this event at FriendsoftheGlen [AT] gmail.com – please let us know the number of volunteers in your party.

Volunteering details:

We will update this description as we identify other relevant details for volunteers. Please contact us to register.

Estimated time: 9:00am-12:00pm
Lunch and drinks will be provided for registered volunteers.

Activities will include:

• digging holes for the trees and shrubs
• spreading woodchips
• installing deer protection around trees and shrubs
• watering
• Squashing any invasive Spotted Lanternflies…

More logistics:

• We will provide the equipment, including shovels, spades, rakes, and wheelbarrows – but if you have favorite tools, feel free to bring them! If you do bring your own tools, please label them with your name.
• Bring work gloves if you have them.

Rain plan:
Our rain date is Sunday, October 6 at 9:00 am. If the weather is not clear, we will post here and on our facebook wall by 8:45 am Saturday advising whether we will use the rain date.

Thank you, we hope to see you on National Public Lands Day!

* National Public Lands Day is on Saturday, September 28, but we’re celebrating it one week later. 

Join us Friday mornings in Glen Providence Park! We remove invasive shrubs and vines that strangle beneficial native plants and crowd the trails, and work on other projects to support plants and wildlife in the park. Enjoy conversation and soak in the natural beauty of the glen – while making a positive impact.

Conservation Crew

Friday mornings
(weather permitting)
9:30 – 11:30 am
Registration required:
Email us at FriendsoftheGlen [at] gmail [dot] com

Since 2013, we’ve removed over 375 bags of invasive plants – liberating native trees and shrubs that were strangled and weighted down by vines – while beautifying and keeping open the trails. Some of our other projects? We’ve painted trail blazes, measured trail distances for trail posts, carried in native trees for planting projects, cleared branches from fallen trees damming the stream, repeatedly cleared the pond intake from blockages, and removed smaller limbs from fallen trees to unblock trails until County Parks could get in with chainsaws.

Logistics:

• Please take a quick read over our Invasive Plant Removal Guidelines
• Wear work clothes – ideally long sleeves & pants – including appropriate sturdy footwear.
• Please bring gloves and pruners.
• We will provide bags and any additional tools.
• Be prepared for hills and uneven terrain.
• We send out an email to our Crew on Thursdays with that week’s project and meeting location, with the next morning’s forecast in mind. Whether you can join us once or weekly, email us at FriendsoftheGlen [at] gmail [dot] com!
• We generally work when the temperature is between 35 and 80 degrees.

Coming soon:

• We’re usually too busy to snap photos, but we’ll add a few here from some past work days!

Glen Providence Park is owned and managed by Delaware County, and we work with the permission of, and in consultation with, Delaware County Parks & Recreation and the Delaware County Conservation District, in addition to consulting other natural lands managers and resources.

We take a pragmatic approach and prioritize those invasive plants that both cause the most harm and are effective to remove. We do not do structural trail maintenance or use power tools.

On a mild spring day in mid-April, 29 adults and kids spent their Saturday morning volunteering in Glen Providence Park at the 22nd Annual CRC Streams Cleanup! We walked the trails and stream, clearing over 20 bags of trash and invasives – and a construction roll, pipe, broken deer fencing, tire, broken concrete bench ends, and other assorted objects.

A motivated crew of volunteers took on the cleanup and relocating of debris piles by the pond from several trees that fell in the March 2018 Nor’easters. They did a beautiful job, even clearing the heavy concrete bench that had broken when one of those trees fell on it!

We shared the park with the Media Lions Club, running the 66th Annual Great Media Easter Egg Hunt. It was a delightful morning and showed once again the great people you meet while volunteering!

Thank you very much to the all of the volunteers, to Cafe Isla for donating the delicious coffee that kept us fueled, and to CRC Watersheds for the supplies and for all of their work organizing the event – removing trash from over 30 locations in the Chester, Ridley, and Crum Creek watersheds!

Check out the fantastic volunteers below!

Photos by Holly Hoffmann and Marcia Tate

On this beautiful spring day, 26 adults, teens, and kids spent their Saturday morning volunteering in Glen Providence Park at the 21st Annual CRC Streams Cleanup! We walked the trails and stream, clearing 17 bags of trash – and lumber, matting, metal, broken concrete bench ends, and other assorted objects! We appreciated that our Pennsylvania State Representative Christopher Quinn (District 168) joined us again this year. It was a delightful morning and showed once again the great people you meet while volunteering! 

Thank you very much to the all of the volunteers, to Seven Stones Cafe for donating the delicious coffee that kept us fueled, and to CRC Watersheds for the supplies and for all of their work organizing the event – removing trash from 34 locations in the Chester, Ridley, and Crum Creek watersheds!

Click on any photo for a closer look!

Photos by George Tate, Marcia Tate, and Stephanie Gaboriault 

Friends of Glen Providence Park is proud to be helping the Chester-Ridley-Crum Watersheds Association (CRC) with their 21st Annual Streams Cleanup! CRC volunteers will remove trash at more than 30 sites along Chester, Ridley, and Crum Creeks and their tributaries, including Broomall’s Run in Glen Providence Park.

21st Annual CRC Streams Cleanup Day

Saturday, April 21
9:00-11:00am
Glen Providence Park
Main entrance, West State Street, Media

The Annual Streams Cleanup is just one of many activities that CRC undertakes to further its mission “To protect, conserve, and restore the natural resources of the Chester, Ridley, and Crum Creek watersheds.” This is our seventh year coordinating the CRC Streams Cleanup for Glen Providence Park.

2018 Stream Cleanup information:

• ** Please register for the cleanup through the CRC website so they can plan for supplies. **
• Meet at the Glen Providence Park main entrance on West State Street in Media at 9:00 am.
• Rain or shine.
• Gloves and bags will be provided.
• We recommend long pants and long sleeves to protect against poison ivy and ticks.
• If you’d like to tackle trash along the streambank, wear water shoes, boots, or old shoes!
• CRC requires that volunteers sign a liability release. 

Please note that this year’s CRC Volunteer Picnic will not be the day of the Streams Cleanup, but will be scheduled for another day. 

For our 7th National Public Lands Day on Saturday, September 30, we installed wildlife habitat plantings at the base of the sledding hill in Glen Providence Park! This year, 15 lovely adults, teens, and kids volunteered a combined 60 hours digging (at times with pick axes!), planting, mulching, installing deer fencing, raking, and watering. A volunteer cleared trash along the trails, and a hiker happened upon us while walking his dog, then stopped and helped us dig one of the most difficult (rocky) holes! 

We planted canopy trees that will someday shade the path, flowering understory trees for spring beauty, and fruit-bearing Pawpaws and Flowering raspberries for culinary adventures! The planting site was downhill of the wooden fence and berm on the sledding hill – in an area where Delaware County Parks & Recreation has been battling erosion – and uphill from our 2014 streamside buffer plantings. As they grow, these trees and shrubs will help further control erosion and slow stormwater runoff to Broomall’s Run.  

In addition to helping control erosion, the plants benefit wildlife by providing habitat and seeds, nuts, fruits, and nectar for mammals, birds, butterflies, and other pollinators. We planted 21 native trees and shrubs, and protected 9 existing native saplings with deer fencing – the complete list is below.

Our hours spent planting are preceded by many hours of planning and site preparation. The day before our planting, our Weed Warriors crew cleared invasive Japanese stiltgrass to make room for the plantings, installed deer fencing on some native tree saplings in the planting area, and moved materials down to the planting site.

We have so many to thank for their help with this project… starting with all those wonderful volunteers!

The volunteers were fueled by delicious coffee generously donated by Seven Stones Cafe, by donuts thoughtfully contributed by one of our volunteers, and an amazing 3′ x 3′ square pizza (four pizzas in one!) donated by Pit Stop Pizza & Steaks!  

Delaware County Parks & Recreation provided the funding for the plants and delivered the mulch. Taylor Memorial Arboretum donated native trees and shrubs again this year, and Delaware County Conservation District donated deer fencing, and gave us access to their Conservation Planting Trailer full of all of the tools we could need! Garden Influence and Redbud Native Plant Nursery provided invaluable expertise, and Friends of Glen Providence Park donors funded the fencing posts and other supplies for this project. Neighbors of the park allowed us to run a hose downhill from their house to water the plantings. We are grateful to all of these people for making the plantings possible!

The next time you are at the sledding hill, look for these native plants, and check out the fun in the photos below – just click on any for a closer look or to scroll through them.

Shrubs:

Bottlebrush buckeye, Aesculus parviflora – 3
Blackhaw viburnum, Viburnum prunifolium – 1
Silky Dogwood, Cornus amomum – 6
Flowering raspberry, Rubus odoratus – 2

Before & After: 

Before: the area was overgrown with invasive weeds, including plenty of Japanese stiltgrass, providing little benefit to wildlife

After: we planted 21 native trees and shrubs, each rich with benefits to wildlife, which will also help reduce erosion and someday shade the path

Photos by Shannon Davidson, Marcia Tate, George Tate & Stephanie Gaboriault

On National Public Lands Day, the Friends of Glen Providence Park will again plant native trees and shrubs in the glen. This is our 6th annual planting project, working to improve wildlife habitat, reduce erosion, and beautify the park!

Native Tree & Shrub Planting!

Saturday, September 30
rain date Sunday, October 1
9:00-12:00noon
Glen Providence Park – main entrance
550 W. State Street, Media, PA

This is one of our most popular and fun events! We are incredibly grateful to Delaware County Parks & Recreation for providing funds for this project, to the Delaware County Conservation District for the use of its Conservation Planting Trailer and supplies, and to Taylor Memorial Arboretum for donating some of the trees and shrubs.

To help us plan our time effectively, and to plan for refreshments, we ask that you RSVP for this event at FriendsoftheGlen [AT] gmail.com – please let us know the number of volunteers in your party.

Volunteering details:

We will update this description as we identify other relevant details for volunteers. Please contact us to register.

Estimated time: 9:00am-12:00pm
Lunch and drinks will be provided for registered volunteers.

Activities will include:

• digging holes for the trees and shrubs
• spreading woodchips
• installing deer protection around trees and shrubs
• watering
• Of course, we also welcome anyone who wants to participate by picking up trash along the trails and stream!

More logistics:

• We will provide the equipment, including shovels, spades, rakes, and wheelbarrows – but if you have favorite tools, feel free to bring them!
• Bring work gloves if you have them.

Rain plan:
Our rain date is Sunday, October 1 at 9:00 am. If the weather is not clear, we will post here and on our facebook wall by 8:45 am Saturday advising whether we will use the rain date.

Thank you, we hope to see you on National Public Lands Day!

As we post details for each month, we will link to that event with information and logistics.  All events are free, family-friendly, and open to the public – we hope to see you in the park!

Friends of Glen Providence Park
2017 Schedule of Events

Schedule subject to change – please check back to confirm times, details, and meeting locations.

Citizen Science: Winter Tree Mapping with Shannon Davidson & Marcia Tate
Saturday, January 28, 2-4:00pm
Meet at 3rd & Kirk entrance
Rain/snow date Sunday, January 29

Winter Naturalist Walk & Talk with Chris McNichol
Saturday, February 11, 10:00-12:00 noon
Meet at State Street entrance
Rain, snow, or shine

Early Spring Clean-up – snow date!
Saturday, March 25, 9:30-11:00am
Meet at State Street entrance
Rain/snow date Sunday, March 26

CRC Streams Clean-up – on Earth Day!
Saturday, April 22, 9-11:00
Meet at State Street entrance
Rain or shine

Spring Bird Walk with Tom Bush
Saturday, May 6, 7:30-9:30am
Meet at 3rd & Kirk entrance
Rain or shine

Arts in the Park: Master Storyteller Odds Bodkin
Saturday, June 3, 5:00-6:30
Rain date Sunday, June 4

Arts in the Park: Splintered Sunlight
Saturday, July 8, 5:00-6:30
Rain date Sunday, July 9

Arts in the Park: Jeffrey Gaines
Saturday, August 12, 5:00-6:30
Rain date Sunday, August 13

Arts in the Park: Eco del Sur
Saturday, September 9, 5:00-6:30
Rain date Sunday, September 10

National Public Lands Day
Saturday, September 30, 9–12:00 noon
Rain date Sunday, October 1

Kids Nature Walk with Holly Hoffmann & Aura Lester
Saturday, October 7, 10:30-12:00 noon
Meet at State Street entrance
Rain date Sunday, October 8, 10:30-12:00 noon

History & Nature Walk with Stephanie Gaboriault & Marcia Tate
Saturday, November 4, 2:00-4:00pm
Meet at State Street entrance
Rain date Sunday, November 5

Christmas Bird Count
Saturday, December 16, 8-10:00am
Meet at 3rd & West Street entrance
Rain, snow, or shine

And don’t forget the Great Media Easter Egg Hunt held by Media Lions & McCarrin Chiropractic – it’s the park’s longest-running event, held annually since 1954!  This year’s date is Saturday, April 8 at 11:00am (sharp!), with a rain date of Sunday, April 9 at 1:00pm.