At City Parks Foundation, we are dedicated to invigorating and transforming parks into dynamic, vibrant centers of urban life through sports, arts, community building and education programs for all New Yorkers. Our programs — located in more than 300 parks, recreation centers and public schools across New York City — reach over 275,000 people each year.
Our ethos is simple: thriving parks mean thriving communities.
In 1989, Kramer vs. Kramer author Avery Corman was concerned about the state of the park near where he had grown up in the Bronx, so he began looking for ways to improve it. Thanks to Avery, and many other dedicated New Yorkers who took action at a critical time in our city’s history, City Parks Foundation now reaches 310,000 New Yorkers every year, offering programming to encourage residents to use and care for their local parks and green spaces.
Over the years, we have grown to meet community needs, adding such notable programs as CityParks tennis — now the largest municipal tennis instruction program for kids in the country — and SummerStage — our city’s largest free outdoor performing arts festival. But we have not forgotten our roots, because we know that our city’s parks are always improved when New Yorkers get involved.
Our city’s parks are the most fundamentally democratic of public spaces, available for anyone and everyone to use for recreation, for enjoyment, for relaxation, for community gathering, for environmental benefits, and for so much more. We are honored to partner with and serve New Yorkers of all ages — attending concerts together, learning yoga in our seniors fitness program, getting out on a rowboat with classmates to learn about our waterways, or volunteering to beautify a local playground — who are all focused on a singular goal: to bring these public spaces to life.
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CityParks Shows brings hundreds of live music, dance and theater performances to communities throughout New York City’s five boroughs with Capital One City Parks Foundation SummerStage, the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre, and the traveling PuppetMobile.
Our sports programs transform New York’s parks into centers for recreation, providing free sports instruction, coaching and equipment to more than 12,000 kids, ages 6 to 17, and senior citizens in nearly 70 locations citywide.
Our environmental education programs help students experience the fun of science, while learning about their relationship to the natural world and the ways they can protect our natural environment.
Partnerships for Parks is a unique public-private partnership between City Parks Foundation and NYC Parks that supports and champions neighborhood volunteers by giving them the tools they need to advocate and care for their neighborhood parks and green spaces. We equip people, organizations and government with the skills and tools they need to transform these spaces into dynamic community assets.
Interested in working for us? Check out our current job opportunities and our internship page.
Looking for volunteer opportunities? Check out our volunteer opportunities page.
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View our organization one-sheet for an overview on CPF.
Click here to access our audited financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023.
Click here to access our 990 statement for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022.
For any press inquiries, please contact press@cityparksfoundation.org.
For more information on CPF or any of our programs, please contact info@cityparksfoundation.org.
