Partnerships for Parks - Congratulations NYC Green Fund Grassroots Grant Awardees

 

Photo courtesy of Friends of Tompkinsville

Fall 2024 NYC Green Fund Grassroots Grantees Announced! We’re thrilled to announce that we've just awarded $375,000 in grants to 69 community groups across the five boroughs through the NYC Green Fund Grassroots grant program. Started as an emergency response program in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fund has expanded into a long-term campaign in the face of ongoing environmental, economic, and social challenges, becoming a lifeline of support for open space stewards across our city. From cleaning our air, cooling our neighborhoods, and preventing flooding, to benefitting the mental and physical health of our communities, our city’s green spaces are critical infrastructure. Many of our urban green spaces, however, rely on the support of grassroots volunteers to provide the care and programming needed to ensure they are clean, green, active, and safe. The Grassroots grant program seeks to address this disparity by focusing on Environmental Justice Areas, majority BIPOC-led community groups, and groups with budgets under $50,000; targeting communities that are most vulnerable to environmental injustice.  Through the Grassroots program, grants ranging from $1,000 to $22,400 will fund community-led projects providing innovative solutions to our most pressing issues, including environmental and social resilience, global heating, food justice, climate justice, emission reduction, environmental education, health disparities, accessibility, gun violence, teen mental health, and more. Some highlights from the coming season: Astoria Pug will expand their composting collection and soil revitalization work, using locally generated food waste to care for neighborhood trees in Queens. Friends of Livonia Park will organize a series of discussions and stewardship events for local teens to share and learn from one another about the issues of gun violence, mental health, and body image in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Washington’s Walk Coalition will hire local youth leaders to aid with urban forestry education and ongoing tree care throughout next summer in the Bronx. St. George Civic Association will engage community volunteers and local businesses to rehabilitate neglected tree beds along a busy shopping corridor on Staten Island. Amsterdam Houses Gardeners will beautify the garden spaces that dot their 9-acre, 13-building public housing complex of over 1,000 units on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. For more information about the awardees, click here. The next round of the NYC Green Fund Grassroots grant application will open in 2025. For the latest updates, check our site or sign up for our mailing list.

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Partnerships for Parks is a joint program of City Parks Foundation and NYC Parks that supports and champions a growing network of leaders caring and advocating for neighborhood parks and green spaces. We equip people and organizations with the skills and tools needed to transform these spaces into dynamic community assets.