NEW YORK -- Approximately 600 volunteers completed a combined 6,000 hours of volunteer work during Tourism Cares' 10th anniversary give-back event, "Tourism Cares for America," which this year involved restoration projects in Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Fort Tilden in Queens, near the Rockaways. (Click here or on the image for more photos from the event.)
Both locations were among those heavily damaged last fall by Hurricane Sandy.
Projects on Coney Island included the painting lamp posts and water fountains on the boardwalk, refurbishing playgrounds, painting a mural near the new Steeplechase Plaza, painting fences, cleaning up the beach and planting at the New York Aquarium. At Fort Tilden, volunteers installed snow fencing along one mile of beach, painted two historic batteries and picked up trash on the beach.
Josephine Bisono, director of sales at the Jade Hotel in Greewich Village worked Friday to install snow fencing along the beach at Fort Tilden. A Brooklyn native, Bisono said she was happy to help out after the devastation from Hurricane Sandy.
"Growing up in New York City and going to the beaches and the Jersey Shore, seeing the devastation was really heartbreaking," she said.
Although Friday was the first time Bisono came to Tourism Cares as a representative from the Jade Hotel, she said the Jade Hotel will be returning to Tourism Cares events in future years.
"It's a great cause, we're most certainly going to be doing it every year," Bisono said. "You have CEOs of travel companies, you have owners of travel companies, you have directors of sales, hotels that are rivals of each other, but all are coming together for a common cause."
NYC & Company, the official marketing, tourism and partnership organization for New York City, joined with Tourism Cares to present the event.