Our Mission
Edward Payson Park is a unique resource for the City of Portland, Maine, offering year-round opportunities for sports, recreation, relaxation, and contemplation. Our mission is to act as stewards and to protect, preserve, and enhance the park while assuring it blends harmoniously with its adjoining communities. We work in collaboration with the City of Portland to develop sound management policies for park programming and development that benefit area neighborhoods and the wider Portland community, while also balancing concerns for the unique ecological and geographic features of the park.
Our History
The Friends of Payson Park was founded in April of 2015 in response to the proposed sale of Congress Square Park to the adjoining hotel. A group of neighbors, seeing the need to preserve and protect open spaces, joined together to create a stewardship group for our own beloved park.
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Since the creation of the friends group FOPP has hosted semi-annual park cleanups, restored a part of the park used as a construction site to green space, conducted traffic studies, offered continuing education opportunities for neighbors with community police officers, pollinators experts, arborists, etc, and provided volunteers for Winter Kids, the city's annual easter egg hunt, and more!