Pocket Park All Hallows' Green Work Day

University District Organization is hosting the Pocket Park All Hallows' Green Work Day at the Foster Community Pocket Park on Monday, October 26, from 4 to 7 PM. It's a volunteer afternoon to get the park ready for winter, and they're pairing the work with composting education and pizza.

If you haven't spent much time there, the Foster Community Pocket Park is at 1970 Waldeck Ave. in Columbus. It was designed in 2024 with a grant from Ohio State by a design class that researched, designed, built, and painted it. The whole point of a pocket park is to take a small urban space and turn it into something safe and inviting for the neighborhood—a place to relax, connect with neighbors, and take part in caring for the area. This work day is one of those ways to get involved.

Over the course of the afternoon, volunteers will be painting benches, weeding flower beds, and tending the landscape to get the park winter-ready. It's also part of a larger push by the University District Organization to promote composting and reduce food waste across the district, run in partnership with the Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio (SWACO). That partnership isn't just for this one day: they also run a food-waste drop-off shed at Indianola Presbyterian Church with SWACO, which collects an average of 633 pounds of food waste each month. That waste is composted and returned to community gardens to grow wildflowers and vegetables, so the work you do here fits into a bigger cycle of keeping the neighborhood green.

It's a low-stakes way to spend a Monday afternoon outdoors with your neighbors, and you'll get some composting tips and pizza out of it. The work day runs from 4 to 7 PM on Monday, October 26, at the Foster Community Pocket Park, 1970 Waldeck Ave.