Monday, December 19, 2011
Workshop!
Join Baltimore Green Space to learn how to make your community garden, pocket park, or other urban oases last forever! Baltimore Green Space works to protect these green areas and other open spaces created and cared for by city residents.
At the request of community groups, Baltimore Green Space acquires community-managed open spaces and provides support to those who care for them. This allows communities to ensure that their urban oases will endure without taking on the responsibilities of acquisition, ownership, and liability.
Join us to learn about the processes and benefits for your neighborhood. The evening will also feature a "virtual tour" of some of the loveliest community green spaces throughout Baltimore.
When: Wednesday, January 18th, 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
Where: HEBCAC
1212 North Wolfe Street
Baltimore, MD 21213
Please RSVP if you can by contacting:
Galadriel Rosen-
grosen@hebcac.org
443 524 2800 ext. 126
or
Miriam Avins
Executive Director
Baltimore Green Space
443-695-7504
miriam@baltimoregreenspace.org
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Tree Baltimore
We have had our first tree delivery!
Now three red maples will be planted at the corner of Montford and McElderry in partnership with
Banner Neighborhoods and the McElderry Park Community Association.
Thank you Tree Baltimore!
Dr. Rayner Browne Elementary School
Dr.Rayner Browne Elementary School revitalized their chess park garden on the corner of Chase and Montford on Saturday November 5th. The event was held for the James W. Rouse day of service and the school, the residents, Parks and People, Elev8, American Communities Trust, HEBCAC, and Power in Dirt all busied themselves to make this day full of sweat and smiles! The greenspace was expanded to include room for a raised bed vegetable garden that students can use to sprout to their hearts content. A new horseshoe pit was created too. Many folks from little ones to Bobcat drivers manned their post. The central pathway was reworked, new beds dug for planting, trash removed, the chess tables refinished, trees planted, and on and on! Volunteers arrived bright and early on a Saturday and had their bellies filled with a lovely lunch and also a BBQ (two meals!)
Thank you so much everyone! I can't wait to see how this project will grow!
Monday, November 7, 2011
C.A.R.E Foundation and Baltimore City Vacant Lot Transformation
What obstacles have you faced?
What are the benefits you've found?
What is your favorite plant in your garden?
Friday, October 21, 2011
Concepts for Vacant Lot Projects
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Meet Our Team - Anna! Coordinator for Southwest Baltimore
Anna grew up in Baltimore, MD. She grew up going to neighborhood association meetings with her Mother, who was the President of their neighborhood group for as long as Anna can remember. These community meetings paved the way for her to be interested in community development. She went to college in Portland, Oregon, where everything is green and plants grow without much help in the constantly wet Pacific Northwest. Returning to Baltimore at the beginning of 2011, Anna is excited to bring her love of green things together with her love for Baltimore and building strong and healthy communities. Her favorite plants are aloe vera and any medicinal herbs. She loves free information, sharing, and yoga.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Meet the Power in Dirt Team - Maria!
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Meet the Power in Dirt team - GIGI!
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Bon Secours of Maryland Foundation's Clean and Green Team
The Clean and Green team is a part of Bon Secours of Maryland Foundation (soon to be Bon Secours Civil Works!) located in Franklin Square in Southwest Baltimore. At the corner of Fayette and Fulton, Bon Secours' Foundation Center is situated in the heart of West and Southwest Baltimore - a strategic place to reach out and help the communities that have often been left behind where other parts of the city have received attention.
Clean and Green is a part of Bon Secours' Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Department. It is a program designed to teach green job development skills as well as provide free cleanup and beautification services to West Baltimore neighborhoods. The Clean and Green team is made up of a handful of adults that are hired for on-the-job training in green landscaping. They have six months to learn how to use the tools and go out into the field and clean lots, plant trees, pick up trash, weed, etc. As part of their training each individual gives at least three presentations about some aspect of green landscaping that he or she has learned while working for Clean and Green. Clean and Green teaches people valuable job development skills as well as necessary services to the Southwest Baltimore neighborhoods they work in.
During the summer, youth employees join the Clean and Green team for a period of six weeks. The youth work alongside their adult counterparts, learning about green landscaping and what it means to give back to their communities. Today was the Clean and Green student appreciation event marking the end of their six week work commitment. Each of the five students briefly presented what he or she learned during their six weeks to the Bon Secours Foundation Center staff. They expressed an array of knowledge they had acquired about landscaping, as well as their emotional reactions to the work they were doing.
Did you know that to kill the weeds coming through the cracks in the sidewalk you must pull the weed out from the root and then spray the spot with a solution of salt and vinegar? Or, did you know that in West Baltimore the hardiness zone is 7-8, and that you should plant Native plants according to this hardiness zone? Did you know there are alternative, environmentally safe cleaning products that you can make with ingredients you can find in your own kitchen? Well, they did!
One student expressed that he was surprised at how much effect just a few hours of work can do. Another said that he was transformed by the experience and does not feel as shy. The girl in the group said she had to get used to the jokes made by all the boys - but that by the end of the experience they were all really close.
Tony Goff, the Bon Secours staff member in charge of the Clean and Green team, congratulated the students on their work and brought to everyone's attention the effect the young people had on the community. He mentioned the daily praise and thanks the Clean and Green team received from residents witnessing the work they were doing. He explained that sometimes, they were helping the community without even realizing it. The group had be approached a few times by drug dealers who emptied the contents of their trash bags to look for a particular piece of trash the C&G team had picked up that was in fact the stash spot for drugs. Because in some areas there is so much trash on the street, a stray potato chip bag is a perfect spot to hide drugs where they will not be seen, and without even knowing it the Clean and Green team would throw these away with all the other trash. As time went on, Tony said when the Clean and Green team approached an area where drug dealing was occurring, the dealers would pick up their operation and take it somewhere else.
Urban greening is not just about growing plants or turning pavement into grass. It is a movement, it is an effect, it is something that changes people and areas. Baltimore's burgeoning greening movement is a movement towards something very positive for each community that participates and for the city as a whole. Let's move towards a healthier, safer, cleaner, greener city!
Stay Green!
Anna, Power in Dirt
Monday, August 15, 2011
Great Gardeners in Baltimore City
Welcome!
The Power in Dirt initiative launched with the revitalization of three vacant lots in different parts of the city. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced the Power in Dirt initiative from one of the sites amongst a group of excited volunteers. Power in Dirt was born from the realization that green spaces accomplish so much in our neighborhoods. A green space can cause "crime reduction, improved physical and mental health, improved nutrition, increased property values, and stronger ecosystems." In an effort to respond to this understanding, Baltimore City got to work on a plan that would encourage residents to create green spaces all over the city. On August 6 we launched the event, kicking off a wonderful greening movement starting in Baltimore!
The launch included lots at N Madeira, North Ave, and N Carey Street. Volunteers from the neighborhood and partner organizations came out and picked up shovels, hoes, and rakes and got working!
We got great help from our partners Civic Works and Blue Water Baltimore designing and implementing beautiful new green spaces where these vacant lots used to be. For example, at 220 N Carey street in Franklin Square, we installed a Rain Garden!
A Rain Garden is meant to capture rain water and absorb it into the soil before it runs off into storm drains and through city streets, collecting pollutants as it goes. Rain gardens help the environment by increasing the amount of water that eventually goes into our groundwater (where we get the water we drink!) and decreasing the amount of pollution in our waterways. A more healthy Baltimore!
Vacant lots are usually seen as a negative element to our neighborhoods. But, if we think of these vacant lots as places for potential green spaces, we can all make Baltimore a beautiful, green, city! I encourage you to talk with your neighbors, go to your neighborhood association meetings, talk with your church communities, and organize a dedicated group to adopt a vacant lot and turn it into something beautiful - or volunteer with someone who is! A green space is not just a beautiful thing to behold - it is a community, it is a learning experience for children, it means healthy living and healthy eating, and it makes everyone who comes in contact with it happy.
Visit the Power in Dirt website : www.baltimorehousing.org/vtov_adopt and learn how you can contribute to the greening and beautification of your neighborhoods!