Volunteers, Senator Rolison clean up Newburgh's Downing Park

Downing Park drew a different kind of crowd on Sunday as 30 college student volunteers from ASEZ worked through a cleanup effort that also included state Sen. Rob Rolison. The work was modest in scale, but its meaning was larger: one of Newburgh’s most recognizable public spaces was being visibly cared for in front of residents, not just discussed in theory.

That matters in a park with deep local weight. Downing Park was designed in 1889 by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the final collaboration between the two landscape architects, and it was created as a memorial to Newburgh native Andrew Jackson Downing, the horticulturist and public park pioneer for whom it is named. The 35-acre city park is owned by the City of Newburgh and managed in partnership with the Downing Park Conservancy, whose mission is to preserve the park’s history and natural beauty.

The cleanup fit into ASEZ’s Global Blue Carbon Ecosystem Protection Initiative 2026, a campaign the group said ran from April 12 through June 8. ASEZ, short for Save the Earth from A to Z, is an international university-student volunteer organization affiliated with the World Mission Society Church of God. The group says the campaign focuses on reducing plastic pollution from inland areas to coastlines and protecting marine ecosystems, linking a litter pickup in Orange County to a broader environmental message.

Rolison’s appearance also gave the effort a political edge. In Newburgh, where park conditions and upkeep regularly fold into wider quality-of-life debates, the question is no longer whether volunteers will show up for a cleanup. The harder question is what comes after that, and whether elected officials and city agencies will match a day of visible service with routine maintenance that keeps the park cleaner, safer and more usable over time.

The timing lined up with a broader push across the city. The City of Newburgh launched a City Park Clean Up Blitz on June 4, and the Downing Park Conservancy has been promoting Green Up Newburgh! 2026 as part of its ongoing stewardship work. For a park that has long been tied to preservation and revival efforts, even a one-day cleanup carried outsized civic meaning, especially when it highlighted how much Newburgh still relies on partnerships to protect spaces that matter to neighborhood life.