A group of friends played soccer and a father pushed his daughter on a swing Saturday in Burnett-Bayland Park while a group of moms meandered along the grass searching for litter. The women volunteer monthly to keep what they say was a once-neglected park clean.

“It was terrible,” said Olga Flores, 43, a mom of two daughters. “The park that you see today is not the park it was in the past. It’s absolutely different.”

The space matters because Burnett-Bayland Park is the only sizeable park in Gulfton, a densely developed community just outside the west side of Loop 610 and  known as Houston’s Ellis Island. Many are from other countries and live in apartments with only parking lots for kids to play in.