Friends of Willow Springs Park

05/30/2026

Make Music Long Beach is collaborating with Album Attack and Friends of Willow Springs Park for this amazing live performance.

Be a Starman! ⭐ All bands and solo artists, register at https://forms.gle/xvi8UGw4mfnf5q6C7 by June 5 for your chance to cover one of the eleven songs from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars by David Bowie.

All performances are acoustic based, creating a fun challenge for the full band and any additional musicians you want to invite. Take full creative control! Cover the song as is or put a whole new spin on it.

All musicians and attendees will meet at Willow Springs Park at 3 pm on Sunday, June 21 for a short hike lead by the Friends of Willow Springs Park before gathering for the music.

Special thanks to the host of Album Attack.

Make Music Long Beach is supported in part by Arts Council for Long Beach and the City of Long Beach.

KLBP

05/10/2026

Check out the Restoration Friday "after" pictures of the City of Long Beach Office of Sustainability crew collecting the mustard plant remnants and some of the cleared areas, including the weeds between the cracks in the old foundation. There were many volunteers, but we didn't catch the "before" action. At the Friends meeting on Saturday, we had Long Beach Parks, Recreation & Marine Park Development Officer Danielle Lewis as a guest to share with us the Willow Springs Vision Plan. It was a great meeting with lots of members joining in on the discussion, we had many interesting conversations. We're really excited about the current and future happenings in Willow Springs Park. Thanks to everyone who participated this weekend!

04/26/2026

It was the perfect weather for the City Nature Challenge (CNC) Saturday morning, April 25. And a great way to spend the last weekend of earth month.

A shout out to the City of Long Beach Office of Sustainability for a great event! Statistics of all the species observed at Willow Springs Park will come later.

Yay to the Friends who helped, hung out, dropped by the table, and the new Friends we made today! Carol, Paul, Megan, Brad, Alison, Rashid, Cynthia, Cathy, Donald, Erin, and Victoria we couldn’t have done it without you, thank you.

Also thanks to Regina Long Beach Community Compost (in the banana suit) for bringing the butterfly kite (from her visit to the butterfly exhibit at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, whose table was next to our table at the CNC) fortunately, the breeze picked up around noonish, perfect for flying. The highlight was seeing the hawk get so close to the kite (it got even closer than what was captured in the pic). Awesome!

04/25/2026

04/18/2026

Next Saturday, April 25, is the City Nature Challenge at Willow Springs Park. Be sure to drop by the Friends table, we still have some Coyote Brush seed eggs to give away and we'll have our beautiful invasive bouquets once again. Come by, say hello and go home with some goodies from the natural habitat of the park!

04/12/2026

April 10 was the City of Long Beach Office of Sustainability’s Restoration Friday. There was a very large turnout of volunteers to help clear out an enormous amount of mustard and thistle, as you can hopefully see in the before and after photos. Plus there were an abundance of Salt Marsh Moth caterpillars around. Then on Saturday the Friends gathered for a walk-and-talk meeting under a beautifully cloudy sky! We checked out the Monarch Day of Action plantings and meandered the Loop Trail backwards. Since we didn’t have a March meeting we went over all kinds of items. Another start to a great weekend in Willow Springs Park!

03/16/2026

Saturday the Friends group participated in the Monarch Day of Action event instead of having a meeting. The group started prepping for the event on Wednesday, where we teamed up with the Sustainability crew in the yard at the park to make the Friends group giveaway, which was Coyote Brush Seed Eggs. Then at Restoration Friday participants helped prep the planting area for the Milkweed, red flags were placed to mark where the 150 native plants were going to be planted. And then on event day Saturday, a ton of participants stopped by the Friends table to decorate the seed egg cartons, some taking home more than one.

A bunch of thank you's goes out to: Rama and Katie who supplied us with Coyote Brush seeds collected from the park; Roger who made us the wonderful information and planting instruction flyers; Alecia who found the recipe, mixed the clay (found in the park by Larry), and sifted the compost (also from within the park by Long Beach Community Compost); the Sustainability crew who helped Alecia and made the eggs with us, Carol who made the dyes, Cathy for the table, Long Beach Heritage for the tent, Diane, Stephen, Alison, Paul, Donald, Rashid, Cynthia, Regina, and all the many participants including members not mentioned. Finally, an extra shout out to City of Long Beach Office of Sustainability for once again putting on a really great Monarch Day of Action event!!

03/06/2026

Be sure to stop by the Friends of Willow Springs Park table. We'll be giving away Coyote Brush (nectar for mature Monarchs) seed eggs in a carton to be decorated at the table. Looking forward to seeing you on March 14.

02/15/2026

On Galentine's Day (Restoration Friday with City of Long Beach Office of Sustainability) we cleared invasive species and mulched around the natives, the ground was pretty soft and the weather was so nice. On Valentine's Day we had our Love Willow Springs Park gathering where we shared ideas and planned the Monarch Day of Action table activity. Alecia brought us all heart shaped jelly filled sandwich cookies (from TJs). It was a delicious treat for a very great day! And a couple came by and shared with us that it was the 10-year anniversary of their engagement that took place at the park, she was even wearing the same shirt. A very sweet start to the weekend at Willow Springs Park!

01/17/2026

Friends, this benefit is close to our hearts. The Honey Fig Lager that is brewing is using the honey from the Bee Sanctuary at Willow Springs Park. Not only that, the Beer Lab is preparing a non-alcoholic refreshing slushee with the Willow Springs honey and a special honey themed pizza is also on the menu.

Everyone is invited. See you Sunday, January 18, 4 to 7 PM, at the family friendly Long Beach Beer Lab at 518 W. Willow, 90806