Thursday, January 24, 2013

Broadway East Work Day

Planting trees

Power in Dirt partnered with the Baltimore Wake Up (http://baltimorewakeup.org/) to help revitalize a vacant block in East Baltimore. Check out a celebrity appearance from The Wire's Sonja Sohn!
 
Group picture with Sonja Sohn (center)
 
More than 80 people volunteered on 5 work days for a total of 225 hours worked over the course of the 8 week initiative.
 


The group, headed by the New Broadway East Community Association, planted 10 trees and 800 bulbs, removed trash and overgrowth, and built a scenic walkway through the lot.

 

The Baltimore Wake Up project was developed by the non-profits ReWired for Change and the violence prevention program Why Murder? Through the WakeUp, community groups get technical assistance from coaches with expertise in a community improvement area and grants to conduct neighborhood improvement projects.

Ten trees have found a new home

 

Monday, January 7, 2013

Planting the Seeds of Recovery


The addiction recovery center Man Alive Inc., in collaboration with the Neighborhood Design Center, used the Love Your Block with Tree’s grant to kick-start their ambitious plans for 2004-12 N. Charles Street. Man Alive first adopted a lot on Charles Street in 2011 and since then have worked to maintain and care for the lots while a plan was generated. While excitement for the project was great amongst the clients and staff, the project faced a series of obstacles in the first year and a plan was never fully developed. In the summer of 2012, with help from the Neighborhood Design Center, the garden committee coalesced around a plan for a grove of fruit and flowering trees that would act as a memorial orchard.  Grace Sweeney, lead organizer of the project for Man Alive says she’s excited “for our clients and staff to have a positive impact on the community and to provide an environment where our clients can work outside and literally see the ‘fruits’ of their labor.” Staff at Man Alive hope that the project can tie in with their own programs and help serve as a form of horticultural therapy for clients struggling to recover from addiction. Grace notes that “work outside will be coupled with a therapy group inside where [clients] can talk about their experiences and share how working with the plants and fruit trees influence their recovery.”

The Love Your Block with Tree’s grant (http://www.parksandpeople.org/greening/grants-for-greening/love-your-block-with-trees/) allowed Man Alive patients and staff to get a head start on their plan by planting native perennials in a designated meadow area and street trees in front of the center.  Man Alive hosts biweekly workdays to help clean up the prodigious amount of trash that accumulates on the highly-trafficked lot and prepare the soil for spring planting. If you are interested in helping out with the project please contact Grace Sweeney at gesweeney@manaliveinc.org or Mikah Zaslow at mzaslow@ndc-md.org.


 planting native plants

 hauling soil

cleaning trash
the whole group