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The Druid Heights Nature Spaces: A Commitment to a Community
Druid Heights nature play space post-transformation Credit: NWF
In 2016, Druid Heights Community Development Corporation (CDC) began planning a community space in a neighborhood in need of green infrastructure. After designing and applying for implementation grants, Druid Heights CDC was connected to the National Wildlife Federation in 2018, which, through a CBT Green Streets, Green Jobs, Green Towns grant, began the work of implementing the plans. The work was completed in 2019.
Led by the Druid Heights Community Development Corporation, and in partnership with local organizations, including the University of Maryland Medical Center and Chesapeake Bay Trust, NWF supported the CDC’s work by transforming a large vacant lot plagued by illegal dumping into a free, immersive nature play space for kids and their families.
In addition to community benefits, this site provides crucial wildlife habitat and storm water benefits in a neighborhood composed almost exclusively of impervious, concrete surfaces.
The space was officially opened to the public during a grand opening in August 2019, with neighborhood residents, project partners, and local officials, including the late Congressman Elijah Cummings, who lived in the community.
After several years of wear and tear from weather and use, in 2025, the National Wildlife Federation is renewing its commitment to the Druid Heights community by sprucing up the existing green spaces to foster community interaction and maintain the ecological benefits of healthy green spaces.
At the Druid Heights nature play space, this revitalization includes several important improvements and updates of existing natural infrastructure including:
- Reinvigorating the native plant gardens with additional herbaceous plants, native shrubs, and native trees
- Replacing sitting stumps, jumping logs, and benches
- Installing new educational signs and plant tags
- Adding simple rope and post fencing to protect native plantings
The work got started this summer with restoring some of the plantings in the main entrance, while remaining work will be completed throughout fall 2025 and spring 2026.
This revitalization effort is made possible through a Chesapeake Bay Trust Healthy Environment, Healthy Communities (HEHC) Jones Falls grant.
Connecting Community Spaces—The Peace Park
Just around the corner from the Play Space lies another community space created by the Druid Heights CDC in 2016, the Druid Heights Peace Park. Led by the Druid Heights CDC, through the University of Maryland MOST Center, in partnership with the Choose Clean Water Coalition, Growing Green Initiative, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Chesapeake Bay Trust, the formerly vacant lot will also receive much needed updates.
The National Wildlife Federation will be working to restore the native plantings, including a small rain garden, shrubs, and trees; upgrade the pathways; and install educational signage.
Workshops
In addition to sprucing up the green spaces, NWF and the Druid Heights CDC will partner to host watershed workshops for the community to explore how the Peace Park and Play Space help to keep Jones Falls—a local creek that flows into Baltimore Harbor and ultimately the Chesapeake Bay—healthy.
Workshops slated for spring 2026 will include storm drain stenciling, a field trip to the local Druid Hill Park, and rain barrel workshops. When the National Wildlife Federation began work on a nature play space in Druid Heights in 2018, it was more than a commitment to a project, it was a commitment to a community.
