Volunteers and staff from Templeton Recreation celebrated the grand opening of the River's Edge Conservation Area in Baldwinville, with organizers describing recent volunteer cleanups and plantings meant to support pollinators and create a small community green space. The date of the opening was not specified in the remarks.

Katie McClure, director of the play group in Templeton for Templeton Recreation, said the project combined volunteers, the Conservation Commission and local homeschool groups: "We actually did a cleanup over here at River's Edge, the conservation area with the help of some local play group people and our volunteers as well as conservation commission, and they helped us decide on what native plants we should keep an eye out for and what they were hoping to have here." McClure said volunteers planted three blueberry bushes and added native flowers to support pollinators.

The planting and site work were described as a mix of new plantings and maintenance of existing vegetation. McClure said volunteers planted three blueberry bushes and added black-eyed Susans and "echinacea, the purple coneflower because those are also native and they're great for the environment and pollinators and the soil." She also said volunteers performed mulching, cleanup and weeding.

McClure said she coordinated a group of homeschoolers who helped begin work at River's Edge when the site was first developed and that an "official planting" took place three years ago with the Conservation Commission and other community members. She said there used to be a building on the site that was removed in previous years and that the community has returned to refresh the area.

Organizers said the name River's Edge was chosen through a townwide survey. McClure described informal trail networks behind the site that community members use and said there have been efforts to make those trails more formal and connected to the Back Bay trails network.

McClure noted nearby businesses as local anchors for the space, saying the area offers a place where people can "grab a pizza and come sit and enjoy this space," and she named a pizza shop, Soulful Mind and Body Apothecary and Lee's as nearby businesses.

Remarks did not include attendance counts, a formal timeline for future improvements, or a municipal funding commitment. Maintenance and additional trail formalization were described as ongoing community efforts rather than formal municipal projects.