Lucas Duda, Sean Gilmartin and Erik Goeddel Join Action Team Captains at Local Park Cleanup

Sitting the bench at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, N.Y., became a much nicer experience thanks to the efforts of local Action Team volunteers and several Mets players.

The Action Team captains from nearby Queens Vocational and Technical High School on Saturday, May 16, took part in the New York City Parks Department’s “It’s My Park Day” in which local communities come together to restore, beautify and clean up public parks.

The students — part of the Action Team national youth volunteer program, which is jointly administered by the Major League Baseball Players Trust and Volunteers of America — spent about four hours scraping, sanding and repainting benches at the park, which old timers will remember as the site of the 1964 New York World’s Fair.

Hours before their game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Mets players Lucas Duda, Sean Gilmartin and Erik Goeddel joined the Action Team’s clean-up effort.

“It’s definitely fun to come out and have the opportunity to work with the Action Team Captains, to see the excitement they have and show how important it is to give back to our community,” Duda said. “As much support as our community shows us, it’s the least we can do.“

The Mets players lent a hand to the Action Team captains by scraping and painting the benches, answering some questions and posing for pictures.
“We get to help people and that makes me feel good about myself, that I’m doing something good for my community,” said Mauricio Bustamante, one of the Queens Voc Team Captains. “It’s a really great program that people should get involved in, it helps others see how helping people out is important.”

For more information on how to #JoinOurTeam please visit Actionteam.org