Before giving thanks, residents can give back to their local park this weekend.

More than 100 volunteer groups in Philadelphia will run cleanups for the city’s biannual Love Your Park event.

From Friday through Sunday, volunteers will gather at the participating parks to plant trees and shrubs, collect litter, prepare the space for the winter — among other activities, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation and the Fairmount Park Conservancy announced in a release.

“One of the best ways to show love for your community is to Love Your Park,” Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Commissioner Susan Slawson said in the release. “Our parks are there for us every day of the year, offering access to nature, space for activity and exploration, and opportunities to connect with one another.”

Love Your Park invites members of the public to celebrate Philadelphia’s public spaces every fall and spring. Parks & Rec and the Fairmount Park Conservancy organized the weekend with the Park Friends Network, which consists of 140 community-run Park Friends Groups.

Participating Friends groups will lead Love Your Park events in their respective neighborhoods. In Northwest Philadelphia, Friends of Cliveden Park in Mt. Airy and Friends of the Wissahickon will host cleanups on Saturday from 9 a.m.-noon. FOW’s event will be at Houston Meadow and volunteers are invited to help restore trails, remove invasive plants and pick up trash.

Friends of the Cresheim Trail members will host their annual fall planting along Cresheim Creek, just below Germantown Avenue, on Saturday from 9 a.m.-noon. Volunteers will meet at the Germantown Avenue trailhead next to the old railroad trestle.

The event is part of the group’s years-long effort to restore native species in the area, prevent the spread of invasives and stabilize the banks of Cresheim Creek. Over the past four years, the Friends group has planted pawpaws, red maple, bur oaks, serviceberries and other native species.

Brad Maule, executive director of Friends of the Cresheim Trail, said Love Your Park draws volunteers from all over the Philadelphia region, some of whom are first-time visitors that become loyal volunteers.

“It really makes an impact and shows you the value that these kinds of events bring to a small organization like us,” Maule said.

Courtesy Stable’s Saturday cleanup will be from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and will include cleaning up litter and preparing the horses’ homes for the winter. Apart from the public cleanup, tree tenders will plant 22 native trees on the ground this Friday, said Cynthia Turecki, barn manager and president of the Boarders & Stewards of Courtesy Stable.

“The people that come to help us are fantastic. We get all kinds of people to come in…friends, neighbors, people that we don’t know who become friends and neighbors,” Turecki said. “It’s a real community event.”

Further south, organizers will host the signature Love Your Park Weekend event at Gorgas Park in Roxborough on Saturday from 9 a.m.-1 p.m. There will be activities for children and a range of volunteer tasks, such as native plantings, cleaning up fallen leaves and removing litter and weeds, according to the news release.

Park lovers can register for a cleanup and find the full list of participating Friends groups at loveyourpark.org. Organizers will provide tools and gloves and volunteers are encouraged to wear sturdy shoes and long pants.

Love Your Park “is a citywide celebration of our public spaces — and of the people who bring them to life,” Tony Sorrentino, CEO of the Fairmount Park Conservancy, said in the release. “Our parks are where civic pride and community spirit meet. Only in Philadelphia do you find such a remarkable network of Park Friends groups and volunteers who show up, season after season, to care for their local parks with genuine love and commitment.”

Abby Weiss is an environmental reporter for the Local and a Report for America corps member. She can be reached at abby@chestnuthilllocal.com.