Enter Friends of Oakland Parks, the "can do" non-profit organization that quietly arranges meetings, funding and support for several Oakland park projects.

The relatively obscure group works with business leaders, volunteer park advocacy groups, the city and grant givers to make park improvements happen.

The group will meet from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. today to talk about recent successes and plans for the new year. Director Kathy Raymond wants Oakland residents who love their parks not only to get to know the group, but also to help it improve parks across the city.

"We do a lot for a number of organizations but very rarely do we get recognized," she said. "We know there are a lot of people, who care about parks out there, yet there are a lot of people out there who don't know what we do or that we exist."

Two years ago, the park advocacy group Oakland Parks Coalition surveyed city parks. The group called McClymonds Mini Park one of the worst in the city. The park, across the street from the high school, attracted only the homeless and drug addicts, and surveyors said it smelled like a toilet.

Three dozen high school students worked with University of California, Berkeley graduate students to devise plans to build a new park after reading about the survey in the Oakland Tribune.

Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation want to make those plans real. "We want to be able to say, 'You've come up with a great concept for the park, and your visions will become a reality,'" Raymond said.

So far, the group has coordinated community meetings and brought in a professional park designer. It will be some time before group members complete plans and raise money to build the park, but momentum has begun.

Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation have a 20-year track record that includes helping Friends of the Rockridge/Temescal Greenbelt build two parks in Rockridge last year. The group will continue to work with the Temescal project until all phases of park construction are completed.

They also are raising money to improve well-used Raimondi Field in West Oakland. They want to put artificial turf and night lights in the park so it can be used all year.

"The fields get so heavily used because there is such a lack of sports fields in Oakland and heavy demand on that particular park," Raymond said.

The group's Web site, www.oaklandparks.org, has been redesigned to be a clearing house for information about city parks. It includes Oakland Parks Coalition surveys and information about the park steward program.

The Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation will meet in the Ebell room of Lakeside Garden Center, 666 Bellevue Avenue.

The Oakland Tribune: Cityside
Leanne McLaughlin, Managing Editor
(510) 208-6447
(510) 208-6477 Fax
lmclaughlin@angnewspapers.com Email