Residents once again are coming together with the mission of saving Ackerman Park.
But this time, they will be using gloves and trash bags, not placards and petitions.

In the morning Saturday, Nov. 1, residents will be cleaning up the Glen Ellyn park.

From 10 a.m. to noon, the Glen Ellyn Park District will provide garbage bags and a dump truck to collect trash in the park’s woods. Volunteers will meet in the parking lot on Riford Road off of St. Charles Road.

The effort is being organized by Melissa Creech, a neighbor who earlier this year led the opposition to the village and Glen Ellyn Park District’s plan for a stormwater project in the park. Before ultimately abandoning the project in light of residents’ disapproval, officials wanted to build two soccer fields in the place of a few acres of land and more than 300 trees.

After the Park District and village pulled their support, the matter receded from the foreground as village planning staff returned to the drawing board, looking for another way to address stormwater detention in the Five Corners area.

But the woods have not lost significance for Creech and hundreds of residents who spoke out or endorsed a petition against the Ackerman Park construction.

“It definitely was something ... that we saved these woods; a lot of people feel ownership of them,” Creech said. “(We realized) if we are able to save these woods, we ought to make them more enjoyable for the community.”

The cleanup next week will be largely superficial — just a collection of trash. In March, the Park District will conduct a more thorough, ecological rehabilitation.

It will be similar to an effort at Churchill Park earlier this month.

“We’ll go in there and show some people some buckthorn (an invasive species), and probably eradicate some smaller stuff,” said Dave Scarmardo, superintendent of parks.