A neighborhood looking after its park, since 1999.

Friends of Lafayette-Pointer Park exists to preserve and improve the park: to maintain the gardens, to keep play spaces and gathering places in good repair, and to draw the neighborhood into the work of stewardship. We do what city budgets alone cannot — the small, steady investments that make a public space feel cared for.

The District purchased the land in 1928. Part of it was a farm owned by Horace Jones; part was owned by African-American families descended from George Pointer (1773–1862), who was born enslaved, gained his freedom, and worked as an engineer on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. His descendants lived on this land through the 19th and early 20th centuries.

For decades, the park was called Lafayette Park. In 2020, after extensive advocacy and conversations with descendants, the District renamed it Lafayette-Pointer Park — restoring the Pointer family's name to the place where their lives unfolded.

Twice a year — once in the spring, once in the fall — neighbors show up with rakes and gloves to clean and prepare the park for the next season. Throughout the year, smaller crews tend the perennial beds, plant bulbs, mulch trees, and keep an eye on the things that need fixing. We raise money to replace benches, resurface the tennis courts, plant new trees, and put on community gatherings in the park.