Miami-Dade Parks’ PLACE (Parks Leadership and Community Engagement) Program connects people and parks through volunteer service. The Parks Foundation partners with the PLACE Program by connecting with community partners, who in 2023 alone provided $36,285 of grant support to the Foundation to help fund 174 community volunteer events, including coastal cleanups. In 2023, the program engaged over 6,300 volunteers who collectively installed over 3,100 plants, picked up nearly 23,000 lbs of marine debris and letter, and participated in 33 natural areas restoration.
In April 2023, the Volunteer Program spearheaded a parkwide celebration of Earth Day at Kendall Indian Hammocks. In collaboration with United Way Miami, The Mission Continues, and dozens of other community partners, over 350 volunteers participated in a natural area restoration to remove 7,000 gallons of invasive air potato vines from the tropical hardwood hammock located within the park’s preserve. Volunteers also learned about the impact of restoring native habitats, released biocontrol measures (air potato beetles) to supplement the work they started, and had the opportunity to plant 305 native shrubs and trees within the hammock.