It's harvest time! Four nonprofit clients report that they've reached key milestones in projects to add green spaces in their neighborhoods.
Cook-Wissahickon School installed a native meadow and has received a PHS Community Greening Award for its schoolyard greening efforts. The Collaborative worked with the Green Committee of Cook-Wissahickon School in 2008 to develop a conceptual master plan to guide fundraising, DIY projects, and larger sustainable landscape improvements. In 2013, the Green Committee installed a native plants meadow recommended in the conceptual plan, thanks to a $27,000 grant from the Schuylkill River Restoration Fund and helping hands from Viridian Landscape Studio and the Emerging Professionals Committee of the Delaware Valley Green Building Council. The school was one of 89 nominated sites evaluated by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society for this prestigious award.
The Roxborough Development Corporation received a $50,000 grant from the Schuylkill River Restoration Fund in October to transform a paved-over vacant lot into a mini-park serving the Ridge Avenue Commercial Corridor. The Collaborative worked with the group in 2010 on a conceptual design for the park, the site of a former storefront. The grant will enable the development corporation to install pervious pavers, a rain garden, and native plants and shrubs in the neglected space.
The Enterprise Center CDC completed Max Paul Park, putting the finishing touch on this multi-purpose open space at 46th and Market Streets. The pocket park combines bench and picnic table seating with native plants and trees. The Collaborative developed a master plan for the site in 2010 that helped this in West Philadelphia nonprofit realize its vision for an urban farm, community garden, and gathering space.
Over the summer, the West Philadelphia Coalition of Neighborhood Schools raised $270,000 to green the Lea Elementary schoolyard, a $10,000 PECO Green Region Matching Grant and a $242,000 Stormwater Management Improvement Program grant from the Philadelphia Water Department. The funding will be used to implement the first phase of schoolyard greening outlined in a Community Design Collaborative's conceptual plan. Phase 1 will have an impact on a large area of the schoolyard, adding a new rubber play surface, expanding the play area, relocating the basketball court, establishing rain gardens along 47th Street, and adding bump-outs at two intersections.