This coming March and April, when you come to enjoy Juniper Park, notice the hundreds of daffodils. These lovely daffodils were planted as a living memorial to all who perished on September 11. The Juniper Juniors planted many of these daffodils with the help of Captain Rico Albacarys, Juniper Park’s Supervisor of Parks Maintenance, also a Master Gardener.

Councilman Dennis Gallagher organized a community-wide graffiti cleanup in late October that attracted over one hundred volunteers from various civic organizations, including the energetic young Juniper Juniors. You may have seen them. They painted more than thirty mailboxes and traffic crossing control boxes along Metropolitan Avenue, Eliot Avenue, Furmanville, Penelope, Juniper Valley Road, as well as a bunch of scattered boxes from 85th Street down to 62nd Road.

The first question from the JJrs after the cleanup? The usual: “When is our next cleanup?”

Look for the Juniper Juniors after the season’s first snowstorm. These kids want to raise funds by removing snow for neighbors.

Like Energizer bunnies, these kids keep going. They joined in to prepare more than 45 posters to protest Keyspan’s sale of the Gas Tank property for use as a Home Depot. Then, they were to join the community for the Saturday morning protest itself. But, as you now know, the kids were instead a big part of the Victory Celebration that replaced the protest.

What a Civics Lesson for these youngsters! They joined their neighbors to make their voices heard, and there voices were, indeed, heard.

During the months until mid-March or so, the Juniper Juniors need your help. As you go through the community, look for and report any location with graffiti. You can report all graffiti to INFO@JUNIPERCIVIC.COM or ROBERTREDWINE40@AOL.COM. Please describe the location as best you can: address (or cross streets), and the structure with the damage. Is it brick, stone, cinderblock, wood? What color is needed to paint over the graffiti? What is your estimate of the size of the damaged area? We will plan our early spring cleanup based on your reports.

Do you know a youngster who would like to be a Juniper Junior? Contact the Juniper Park Civic Association (see the inside back cover) or email either of the two addresses above.