Action Team cleaning up Flushing

Councilmember John Liu's Youth Action Team is staying quite busy during these hot, muggy August afternoons. They started by cleaning graffiti off local mailboxes. They've visited senior centers and handed out voter registration forms, and recently delivered 1,163 completed ones to the New York City Board of Elections.
Then there was the mission of sprucing up six local parks, which they started last week with an all-day clean-up of Daniel Carter Beard Memorial Square, the oldest public park in Queens, at the intersection of Northern Boulevard and Main Street.
All 85 members of Liu's team staved off the heat to dig out roots from the paved parts of the park that runs along Union Street, and clear it of debris and garbage.
&#8220The parks are one of the places people visit most frequently, so if we can get the parks cleaned up, people will have a better way of living,” said Paul Sun, a soon-to-be senior at Francis Lewis High School and a member of the Youth Action Team. &#8220It's definitely an important thing to be taken care of.”
However, the park clean-up is just one of many significant contributions to the community made by the team. This is the sixth year of Liu's Youth Action Team, but this summer is by far the largest and most responsible group he's seen. &#8220The amount of leadership qualities being exhibited is magnificent,” Liu said.
Members of the team have also taken great satisfaction in a hard day's work of fixing up the area. &#8220I joined the Youth Action Team because it's a great community service and I get a lot of experience,” Sun said. &#8220I live in Flushing. It's my community and to clean up the community, I think, is our job.”
&#8220The young men and women on my Youth Action Team make a tremendous impact by providing this kind of public service,” Liu added. &#8220They improve quality of life, and they feel an enormous sense of pride at the end of a day's hard work knowing they did their share and improved the community they live in.”