Restoring a Landscape through Education

The banks of Little River are serving as an outdoor classroom for Mayor's Summer Youth Employment Program participants and other volunteers.

In summer 2021, we kicked off the first of at least three year project to restore the riverbank between the Alewife Stormwater Wetland and the Little River. Partnering with Parterre Ecological to provide expertise in the field, and working in collaboration with Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Cambridge Conservation Commission, we're creating new native habitat by removing invasives and planting shrubs and trees.

Initiated in 2015 by the previous incarnation of Friends of Alewife Reservation, and funded in part through Ellen Mass, former FAR president, this 28,000 square foot site prone to flooding and dogged by pollution will be ameliorated via biodiversity plantings that builds on the native plantings of the Stormwater Wetland area.