“We Built This Place”: Youth Reflections on a Park Building and Maintenance Program

Park in a Truck (PiaT) is a participatory urban green space development initiative that helps communities transform vacant lots into neighborhood parks. Critical to PiaT is the Park Ambassador (PA) program that trains neighborhood youth involved with this process as paid interns to plan events and perform maintenance in their new neighborhood park. While research has identified the benefits of participatory urban greening programs among adults, including fostering interpersonal relationships and community engagement, there is little research on the benefits among youth. This article describes the results of 17 interviews with youth PAs about their perspectives on the activities they complete, and their perceptions of the impact of the program. In the interviews, PAs described many common personal and community benefits, including the importance of meaningful work, self-efficacy, socializing, and creating places of natural respite for community and environmental benefit. Overall, the results provide evidence of the beneficial effects of a participatory urban greening program on youth participants.