Equitable Communities Fund

Gila River Linear Park and Trail

The $25,000 grant will provide funds for partners Graham County, Gila Watershed Partnership, and Trust for Public Land to secure the public grants and private funds needed to construct a 5-mile trail along the Gila River in southeastern Arizona. Running along the edge of the adjacent rural communities of Safford and Thatcher, the Gila River provides water to support both the agricultural economy of the area and riparian habitat for a number of endangered fish and bird species. The land along the river, however, is almost entirely privately owned farmland; therefore, the 15,000 residents of these communities historically have had no public access to the iconic river. Project partners recently worked with a landscape architecture firm to complete a community-based conceptual master plan for a linear park and trail along the river and negotiated with private landowners for a donation of trail easements on the required lands. After fundraising, construction, and installation, the nonmotorized trail will allow hikers, bikers, and horse riders to connect with the outdoors along the river. The park and trail will serve as the flagship segment for a growing recreational network serving these communities.

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Norwood Elementary Schoolyard and Zamora Park

Active San Gabriel Valley (Active SGV) is working toward a more sustainable, equitable, and livable reality its residents. The local nonprofit began as group of concerned community members who shared a vision: they wanted to create a cohesive network of bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly streets in the San Gabriel Valley. The $50,000 in Equitable Communities funding for this project was made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. It will enable Active SGV to continue its important community engagement work in the city of El Monte, as it works with TPL to begin the construction phase of Zamora Park, as well as a new project at Norwood Elementary School. Both are in the San Gabriel Valley.

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Markham Elementary Schoolyard and Melrose Leadership Academy Schoolyard

The $70,000 in Equitable Communities funding for this project was made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The funds will go to Growing Together, an Oakland–based organization that works to improve the health and sustainability of school communities through schoolyard greening. Founded in 2013, Growing Together increases access to fresh food and raises awareness about and connection to the living world by working with students to create and nurture school gardens. This funding will enable Growing Together to support community stewardship of the green schoolyards, build its outdoor learning curriculum, and help with outreach to engage local families at Markham Elementary and Melrose Leadership Academy.

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Willowick Community Park

The Rise Up Willowick (RUW) Coalition received $50,000 in Equitable Communities funding made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. RUW is a group of residents and organizations concerned about the planned development of 102 acres of publicly owned open space (currently Willowick Golf Course) in Santa Ana. Willowick Community Park is a re-envisioning of this open space. Funding for RUW will support community engagement work in Santa Ana, and the funding to hire a Vietnamese-speaking organizer to ensure the engagement of a broader sector of the local community. This outreach will continue through the acquisition of the property, as well as early design development.

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Panorama Park and Sand Creek Greenway

The $60,000 in Equitable Communities funding for this project was made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The funds will support RISE Southeast, which works to enhance Colorado Springs through resident-led change, as it partners with TPL and the Trails and Open Space Coalition (TOSC) to expand Panorama Park and Sand Creek Greenway. Goals include a broader analysis of the parks, schoolyards, and trails in the Southeast neighborhood, including a wayfinding and creative placemaking assessment of the Sand Creek Corridor, a 5-mile trail network connecting 12 park and school sites. By 2022, we plan to work collaboratively with RISE Southeast to install interpretive signage and maps along the corridor and to connect to key locations, such as Panorama Park. RISE Southeast is an initiative developed and led by resilient, inspired, strong, and engaged residents of Southeast Colorado Springs.

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D3 Arts

The $25,000 grant will help D3 Arts, a nonprofit group, regain its financial footing after a year in which its projects with schools, other nonprofits, and government partners were put on hold due to the pandemic. The group, which is focused on community health, has a lofty mission statement: helping individuals recover their true selves. In the Westwood neighborhood of Denver, where a third of residents are below the poverty line, that goal is more pressing than ever. Last summer, gun violence erupted in the community, reflecting a surge of crime across the country during the pandemic. COVID-19, too, has taken a severe toll on residents, many of them of Mexican and Vietnamese descent. D3 Arts has partnered with The Trust for Public Land in Westwood on mural projects in the past, and there are plans for more collaboration, including arts programs aimed at high-risk youth in a future pocket park.

D3 Arts also received $50,000 in Equitable Communities funding through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. This funding will be used towards the West Via Verde Pocket Park Project, which will provide D3 Arts with dedicated outdoor space to expand their programming and events. This funding will enable D3 Arts to develop their programs across the neighborhood and their programmatic vision for their future home at West Via Verde Pocket Park.

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Sliver by the River

The $40,000 award will pay for a schematic design for a planned park in Bridgeport, Connecticut, whimsically named Sliver by the River–the first step in seeking state and federal grant funding. The city of Bridgeport was once an industrial powerhouse. In its heyday, it produced everything from corsets and phonographs to sewing machines and steam-powered automobiles. As heavy industry faded, however, the city hemorrhaged jobs and shed residents, all while suffering the effects of chemical pollution. With an enviable perch on Long Island Sound, Bridgeport is now in the midst of a waterfront revitalization that will include a ribbon of parks along a 20-mile shoreline path. One such park project is Sliver by the River. It is currently an almond-shaped vacant lot, sandwiched between the Pequonnock River and the city’s train and bus stations. But when completed, the four-acre park will give 38,919 new residents ten-minute walk access to the waterfront greenspace (currently 70% of the waterfront is inaccessible.) Sliver by the River is important for addressing our national park equity gap: of the potential park users, 54 percent are low-income, while 47 percent are Hispanic, 36 percent white, and 33 percent Black.

Sliver by the River also received $50,000 in Equitable Communities funding through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Groundwork Bridgeport is our key partner on the entire Bridgeport Waterfront Pathway. This funding will enable Groundwork Bridgeport, a team of two, to implement community outreach for the participatory design process at Sliver by the River through in-person engagement opportunities and a variety of online and other media outreach.

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Miles Elementary Schoolyard

The $20,000 award will support The Launch Pad Foundation, which provides literacy programs to elementary-aged students. Launch Pad is collaborating with Miles Elementary School, where Trust for Public Land is helping transform the asphalt-covered schoolyard into a tree-lined, plant-filled neighborhood park. Each of our Community Schoolyards projects includes an outdoor classroom, and Launch Pad is helping to design and create an outdoor learning environment that supports reading. The foundation’s signature “We Read Together” program is an incentive-based community initiative that aims to get students reading with their parents. The idea is to encourage families to set aside time each week, free from distraction, to read. Miles Elementary is one of high need: 100 percent of students qualify for a free lunch, and only 15 percent of students scored at or above the proficient level for reading in a recent assessment. The $20,000 in Equitable Communities funding was made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

WAWA Outdoor Activity Center

The $60,000 grant will enable the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance, a community-based nonprofit, to make improvements at the Outdoor Activity Center (OAC), a city-owned park the group manages in southwest Atlanta. OAC is a 26-acre urban nature preserve with a forest, two miles of trails, a nature-themed playground, and a multi-purpose building. The Watershed Alliance describes the surrounding community, known as Oakland City, as “low-to-moderate income, environmentally stressed, and under-served.” According to the 2010 Census, 41 percent of residents lived in poverty, compared with the citywide average of 25 percent. OAC was established in 1975 for the purpose of involving children and adults in environmental issues and teaching them about conservation and ecology. WAWA will continue to oversee maintenance and stewardship of the park, while offering on-site programming. One capital improvement the group would like to pursue is the daylighting and restoration of Utoy Creek. The project would provide wildlife habitat, install a wildlife-viewing platform, and inspire watershed-based science activities. The $60,000 in Equitable Communities funding was made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

How well are U.S. cities meeting the need for parks? Explore the 2022 ParkScore rankings.

Columbia Elementary Schoolyard

The $20,000 award will help Partners in Action for Healthy Living (PAHL) expand and enhance a community garden it maintains at Columbia Elementary School in Decatur, Georgia, northeast of downtown Atlanta. Trust for Public Land has begun the process of turning the existing schoolyard into a Community Schoolyards project, with trees, plants, new play equipment, an outdoor classroom, and other amenities. Upon completion, renovated schoolyards, per agreements with the host school, become available to the local community after school and during weekends. As the project evolves, PAHL will work with the community to develop improvements to the school site. The group will also collaborate with Trust for Public Land on student engagement and learning activities. Ninety-seven percent of students at Columbia Elementary are Black or African American, while 2 percent are Latino, with 99 percent qualifying for a free or reduced lunch. The $20,000 in Equitable Communities funding was made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

How well are U.S. cities meeting the need for parks? Explore the 2022 ParkScore rankings.

Kaunāmano & Kiolaka’a

The $100,000 award will further the mission of the Ala Kahakai Trail Association (ATA), a nonprofit that supports and guides a community-managed trail connecting Native Hawaiians to their ancestors. ATA owns and manages 1,363 coastal acres at Kaunāmano, and is poised to own and manage 1,841 acres at Kiolaka‘a. Trust for Public Land has worked to protect both properties in recent years. Kaunāmano’s conservation ensured public access to 3.3 miles of coastline and marine resources, including a tidepool complex, coves, and sea caves. The Kiolaka‘a property, once protected, will preserve natural and cultural resources like portions of the ancient Kamakalepo settlement and the eastern shoreline of Ka‘alu‘alu Bay. ATA will use the funding to engage in education and bolster stewardship of the lands, as well as management of the 175-mile Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail. That trail runs along the coast of the Big Island, connecting the two properties and four others TPL protected in recent years and ATA now manages. The $100,000 in Equitable Communities funding was made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

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Oahu Intertribal Council

The $25,000 grant will support the Oahu Intertribal Council (OIC), which educates communities in Hawaii about North American Indians and Alaska Native traditions and cultures. The pandemic expanded the council’s outreach beyond education to immediate support for Native American and Hawaiian families. OIC provided food and economic relief to elders, families, and veterans through food, clothing, and household-good drives; gift card and cash donations, and holiday gift boxes in collaboration with other nonprofit groups. OIC also made available more than one thousand meals during the summer launch of our Parks for People Program at ʻAʻala Park. As a grassroots organization bringing thousands of indigenous peoples together at its annual intertribal powwow in Hawaii’s parks, OIC embodies The Trust for Public Land’s commitment to health and equity. In addition, the grant will allow OIC to reinstate the Annual Honolulu Intertribal Powwow, which, due to the pandemic, was unable to raise money from the sale of Native American foods and crafts at events.

‘A‘ala Park

This project used creative placemaking to engage youth and reflect the stories and culture of A‘ala Park and its communities..  The $25,000 provided funding for our partners Better Block Hawaiʻi, Kalihi Valley Instructional Bike Exchange (KVIBE), and Kamehameha Schools Mural Club to engage with the project. Trust for Public Land collected community surveys and conducted interviews to learn about the rich history of the park and the diverse Native Hawaiian, Asian, Micronesian communities that live and work nearby. TPL provided this research to the Kamehameha Schools Mural Club, and students created different designs reflecting that heritage. Community members then voted on their favorites. The winning designs were flowers that represented the diversity of the community (e.g., peonies for Asian cultures, kou blossoms for Hawaiian culture), which were painted on utility boxes, and a rainbow bird design based on the story of a beautiful woman named Lepemoa who could transform herself into a multicolored bird; these were painted on a series of bus stop shelters. KVIBE members cleaned the areas and painted base layers, and the mural club students painted their designs. Better Block Hawaii facilitated the work, obtained permits, and paid for paint and supplies. TPL staff and volunteers served as chaperones.

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Kaluanono and Halulu Fishpond Access

The $100,000 award to the Waipā Foundation will support educational and ʻāina (land that feeds) programming for underserved youth of the area, who are primarily Native Hawaiian. The nonprofit focuses on food security and runs a farmer’s market, grows vegetables in its garden, and undertakes ecological restoration work. The nonprofit also stewards 1,600 acres as a community resource and learning center for sustainability–property that it leases from the local school district. To secure the foundation’s presence on the north shore of the island of Kauai, Trust for Public Land is acquiring two properties within the large land lease: the 1.8-acre Kaluanono site and .25-acre Halulu Fishpond Access site. Kaluanono is an ancient wetland taro field, while the Halulu property is adjacent to a fishpond that will be restored and used to grow fish for local consumption. The $100,000 in Equitable Communities funding was made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

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Emmett Till Great Migration Campus

The $100,000 grant will help Blacks in Green (BIG), a nonprofit in Chicago, buy multiple properties in the vicinity of Emmet Till’s childhood home. In 2020, BIG purchased the red-brick two-flat in the Woodlawn neighborhood where Till lived with his mother Mamie Till Mosley. The 14-year-old African American was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman. The nonprofit plans to create a pilgrimage site that not only tells Till’s tragic story, but also relates the narrative of the Great Migration between Mississippi and Chicago. The $100,000 in Equitable Communities funding was made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The money will allow BIG to chip away at its goal of purchasing 16 vacant lots in West Woodlawn. The group plans to transform the lots into community gardens that commemorate African American luminaries from Chicago, including Mamie Till Mosley, an educator and activist; the poet Gwendolyn Brooks; the playwright Lorraine Hansberry; the businessman and publisher John H. Johnson, and the songwriter and singer Oscar Brown, Jr.

Friends of Sears Sunken Garden

The $125,000 in Equitable Communities funding, a portion of which was provided through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, will allow the Friends of Sears Sunken Garden in Chicago to engage horticulture and landscaping professionals in a distressed neighborhood. In urban areas with extremely high unemployment, one catalyst for job growth is the green economy. Jobs in horticulture, forestry, and park management provide a path to both sustainable wages and careers. Friends of Sears Sunken Garden, serves a community where nearly half of the 35,000 residents live at or below the federal poverty level and more than a quarter live in extreme poverty. Eighty-eight percent are low-income African Americans, and three quarters are parents. One park project in North Lawndale that holds promise for green jobs is the Sears Sunken Garden. Built by Sears, Roebuck and Co. for employees on the company’s 40-acre campus, the garden withered when Sears pulled up stakes in the 1970s. They are working with community partners to revive the garden, with help from The Trust for Public Land. The grant will enable the group to enlist landscaping expertise as it devises recruitment, training, and employment strategies for the project. Once designs are complete they will assist with the final construction and restoration process.

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Norwell Street Park

The $25,000 award will fund community engagement and participatory design for a new park that will rise from a vacant, litter-filled lot in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. Dorchester is not only the city’s largest neighborhood, but its most diverse. Waves of immigrants over many decades have put their stamp on the southeastern corner of the city. It is also home to a portion of Franklin Park, one of the jewels in the so-called Emerald Necklace, the network of parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. But within Dorchester are many smaller communities; one of them, the West of Washington neighborhood, has no parkland at all. The future half-acre Norwell Street Park, which adjoins a new commuter rail station, sits along a nine-mile urban greenway that the City of Boston has identified as a priority in its long-term transportation plan. The grant should also ensure that residents are able to direct the $1.2 million in capital park investments we have already secured.

Norwell Street Park’s partner organization West of Washington Coalition also received $80,000 in Equitable Communities funding through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF).  The WOW Coalition has played a primary role in developing and advancing the Norwell Street Park project, and continues to have an ongoing role in the park’s stewardship and programming, by entering into a management agreement with the Boston Parks and Recreation Department (BPRD), which will own and have primary management responsibility for the park. Funding from DDCF will enable WOW to plan and execute park programming and maintenance, train and compensate community members to help care for the park, and obtain professional services for stewardship, events, and programming.

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Talking Brook Public Land

Lewiston-Auburn, the second most populated metropolitan area in Maine, is approximately 10 miles from Talking Brook and has one of the highest needs for quality outdoor spaces in Maine. Only 55 percent of Lewiston residents and 44 percent of Auburn residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. The physical activity levels in Androscoggin County are much lower than the state average, and the county has the highest prevalence of obesity in the state, as well. The $25,000 grant for this project will create a new public land unit within a 20-minute drive of Lewiston-Auburn—a region with a sizable immigrant and refugee community from Somalia and other parts of Africa. Talking Brook will lead to new state land in southern Maine, which has less public land than its northern counterpart.

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Central Village Park

The $25,000 award will help finance a community-driven master plan for Central Village Park, addressing trails, site amenities, safety, programming, and traffic-calming solutions. Located in St. Paul’s historic Rondo neighborhood, the four-acre park has a complex history. The once-vibrant Black community there was all but destroyed in the 1960s with the construction of Interstate 94 and, later, urban renewal projects. In the 1980s, that development, along with the park, forced out hundreds of families, businesses and organizations. Just two blocks north of Interstate 94, the park is much-cherished, but after decades of disinvestment, it is in need of an upgrade. The revitalized park will serve the broader Summit-University community, the most racially and ethnically diverse in the city. Of 9,381 residents within a ten-minute walk of the park, 40 percent are Black, 34 percent Asian-American, and 7 percent Hispanic.

Springboard for the Arts, a partner on the Central Village Park project also received $80,000 in Equitable Communities funding provided through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF). Springboard for the Arts is an economic and community development organization for artists and by artists. Springboard will use this funding to hire a community-based artist organizer(s) to lead, guide, and administer park visioning engagement activities, support planners and landscape designers, and support the development of a park stewardship group. Additionally, funds will be used to make minor park improvements and celebrate the park’s history and diversity, as guided by community visioning.

Lower Phalen Creek Project

The $105,000 Equitable Communities award, a portion of which was provided through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, was used to hire and support efforts of an environmental justice coordinator, which is playing a central role in community engagement and outreach for the daylighting project for Lower Phalen Creek and efforts to bring equity to future land-use projects. Lower Phalen Creek Project is a Native-led environmental nonprofit in St. Paul with a broad mandate, including environmental education, urban conservation, and cultural healing. But when it started in 1997, its focus—as its name suggests—was trained on daylighting Phalen Creek. The creek historically flowed out of Lake Phalen, winding through what is now the city’s East Side and spilling into the Mississippi River. It was a critical corridor for the Dakota people, a place where they fished and gathered wild rice. But like many rivers, Phalen Creek by the 1930s had been diverted through a tunnel below ground to accommodate real estate development. Despite community surveys, exhibits, a feasibility study and design plan, the original goal of Lower Phalen Creek Project has yet to be realized. The grant will also go toward resurrecting the creek’s long-hidden waters.

How well are U.S. cities meeting the need for parks? Explore the 2022 ParkScore rankings.

PowerCorps Camden

The $40,000 grant will support PowerCorps Camden, an AmeriCorps program for at-risk youth from the City of Camden. The group, which has partnered with The Trust for Public Land in the past, trains teenagers and young adults to address pressing environmental issues by tackling projects like implementing storm-water management; cleaning and greening vacant lots; improving community space and parks; and revitalizing public land. The city of Camden, which PowerCorps serves, was hit harder by COVID-19 than the surrounding communities. Before the pandemic began, the unemployment rate in Camden was at 11 percent; it has since soared. The Trust for Public Land enlisted PowerCorps youth in designing Dominick Andujar Park, named for a 6-year-old Camden boy who was fatally stabbed in 2012 while trying to protect his 12-year-old sister during a home invasion. And the group is poised to maintain Dominick Andujar Park, as well as Green Schoolyards at Mastery Charter High School and Cooper’s Poynt Family School. The grant will allow us to maintain a more equitable partnership with PowerCorps, which historically lent its support to our projects without compensation.

How well are U.S. cities meeting the need for parks? Explore the 2022 ParkScore rankings.

Feaster and Pittman Parks

The $22,885 grant will accelerate the planned renovation of Feaster and Pittman Parks, which was delayed by the pandemic. When the Trust for Public Land and residents of the Unity Square neighborhood came together to dream up possibilities for the renovation of the adjoining parks, they set out to honor the rich history of the community while ensuring its newest residents, largely comprised of families who immigrated to the U.S. from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, had their desires for the space reflected in the final design. The extensive input collected from all corners of the community inspired a design that pays homage to Paul Robeson, a favorite son of New Brunswick who was an artist, athlete, scholar, and activist; and is brimming with amenities for this vibrant community to play, gather, grow and learn. Feaster Park will include custom play areas, a community garden, spray pad, athletic courts, plenty of room to run around, educational amenities, and useful features for neighbors of every age—including shaded seating and performance areas. Pittman Park honors the Civil War veterans interned there and will remain a place for reflection. More than 16,500 residents live within a 10-minute walk of the soon-to-be renovated parks, which together span five acres; of those, 60 percent are low income, and 72 percent are Hispanic.

How well are U.S. cities meeting the need for parks? Explore the 2022 ParkScore rankings.

Fairmount Heights Neighborhood Park

The $100,000 award to the Fairmount Heights Neighborhood Association (FHNA) will strengthen the group’s relationship with the City of Newark. The association is an important advocate for green space in the Fairmount neighborhood, which has long struggled with poverty, crime, and a lack of parkland. The group is now helping to redevelop a park at the corner of South 9th Street & 12th Avenue. The park project, which includes new play equipment, a garden, and space for performances, has the support of the Urban League of Essex County and the City of Newark. The grant will allow the association to develop into a full-fledged partner of city government, serving as a Friends group for the future park.

How well are U.S. cities meeting the need for parks? Explore the 2022 ParkScore rankings.

PS 107X Schoolyard

The $25,000 grant will leverage public funding for the renovation a 1.6-acre schoolyard in the Bronx, making it shovel-ready this summer. In a recent study, the Bronx emerged as the least healthy county in New York State, ranking last out of 62 jurisdictions. The inequities were striking. Right next door, Manhattan placed among the healthiest counties in the state, with an average life expectancy of 84.5 (compared to the Bronx’s 80.4). Social determinants play a large role in health outcomes, of course, and in one area of the Bronx, the Soundview neighborhood, more than half the population lives in poverty. The conversion of an asphalt schoolyard at P.S. 107X in Soundview will address at least one such determinant—access to greenspace. Transforming the school grounds with new trees, gardens, and play equipment, and then making the space accessible to the entire community during non-school hours, will put nearly 15,000 residents within a 10-minute walk of a park. The schoolyard at P.S. 107X, known as the Parkchester Elementary School, also suffers from poor drainage. The renovation will prevent local flooding with permeable paving stones and thirsty vegetation.

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Recess Cleveland

The $30,000 award will help Recess Cleveland, in conjunction with The Trust for Public Land, fabricate branded shipping containers to be used to house temporary pop-up park activities. A nonprofit that promotes emotional growth and physical activity, Recess Cleveland holds pop-up events in schools and parks that lack safe spaces to play. Since its founding in 2015, the group has embraced a model centered on providing free weekly outdoor games for families and children across the city of Cleveland and, in the process, revitalizing under-resourced parks and greenspaces. Recess Cleveland’s relationship with The Trust for Public Land Ohio was formalized in 2020, when the group was chosen as our 10 Minute Walk partnership fund recipient. Despite challenges associated with community engagement during the pandemic, we feel our work with Recess Cleveland is just getting started, and we look forward to future collaboration as the Ohio Parks for People program makes inroads into park-deprived neighborhoods.

How well are U.S. cities meeting the need for parks? Explore the 2021 ParkScore rankings.

Chiloquin Elementary Schoolyard

The $25,000 award will cover the cost of hiring an artist to work with students at Chiloquin Elementary School, where a planned outdoor mural will highlight the history and culture of the Klamath Basin. The school is located in Chiloquin, a rural community in southern Oregon and the capital of the Klamath Nation. In fact, the name “Chiloquin” belonged to a Chief whose descendant Edison Chiloquin resisted efforts to be bought out by the federal government in the 1950s. That is when the United States embarked on a campaign to terminate many Indian tribes. Despite the painful history of dispossession, members of the Klamath Tribes still have a strong connection to the land. Yet for students at Chiloquin Elementary, the schoolyard—a bland, tired landscape—inspires neither love of nature nor dynamic play.  A new “Green Schoolyard,” that broke ground in the fall, should correct that. Designed with input from students and community members, the renovation will result in a covered basketball court, modern play equipment, paths winding through native plants—and the new mural.

A $30,000 Equitable Communities award provided through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation will support Willamette Partnership’s continued community engagement work around this project as we complete designs and construction of the schoolyard over the next year.

How well are U.S. cities meeting the need for parks? Explore the 2021 ParkScore rankings.

Anderson Schoolyard

The $50,000 grant will help cover a top-to-bottom renovation of a drab, sun-baked schoolyard at Add B. Anderson School in West Philadelphia. When students at the elementary school head outside for recess, they must contend with a schoolyard that is more parking lot than play space. The sea of asphalt heats up quickly and contributes to flooding of the school’s basement. The solution? A green schoolyard, with new trees for cooling shade; fresh play equipment; an outdoor classroom, and rain gardens and other green infrastructure to capture storm water. When completed, the schoolyard will also give park access after school and on weekends to the wider Cobbs Creek community, which is one of concentrated poverty. Specifically, 9,489 new residents—95 percent of whom are Black—will have a greenspace within a ten-minute walk.

Mifflin Square Park

The $100,000 award will support and expand the community nonprofit SEAMAAC’s programming for children, families, and elders in south Philadelphia. A key focus of those efforts is Mifflin Square Park, a four-acre historic green space that for years was rundown, but is now receiving a major overhaul. Fifty-seven percent of the 27,000 residents served by the park are considered low-income, and the surrounding neighborhood is highly diverse, with many newly arrived families from Southeast Asia and Latin America. A robust community engagement effort, spearheaded by SEAMAAC, led to an updated vision for the park, with new playgrounds, a splash pad, and other amenities. The $100,000 in Equitable Communities funding, made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, will allow SEAMAAC to provide programming at Mifflin Square that is tailored to the area’s diverse cultures, languages, and backgrounds.

How well are U.S. cities meeting the need for parks? Explore the 2022 ParkScore rankings.

Alton Park Connector

The Alton Park Connector is a 1.3-mile rail-trail project that will connect the neighborhood of Alton Park to the Tennessee Riverwalk, as well as Chattanooga’s larger 25-mile greenway system. Alton Park is a historically Black community with significant industrial activity and negative health characteristics like heart disease, diabetes, and elevated blood pressure. Separate awards totaling $100,000 will boost three community groups that serve the Alton Park community. The ELLA Library will use its $40,000 grant to launch a series of art installations along the Alton Park Connector as a way to creatively engage with the neighborhood. Crabtree Farms of Chattanooga, a community-based group promoting sustainable agriculture, will deploy its $40,000 grant to make its farm—just east of the Alton Park Connector–accessible as a neighborhood park and source of healthy food. Finally, The Net Resource Foundation (NRF), known for community-building and mentorship programs in South Chattanooga, will use its $20,000 to ensure continued youth engagement as the Alton Park Connector nears completion. The $100,000 in Equitable Community funding was made possible through a grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

The White Oak Bicycle Co-Op

The $10,000 grant will allow the White Oak Bicycle Co-Op to purchase equipment and bolster its ability to make bicycling available to everyone. The volunteer-run Co-Op in the city of Red Bank, Tennessee (outside Chattanooga) recognizes that one of the biggest barriers to owning a working bike is lack of income. The Co-Op is committed to providing free access to bicycles and repair services to those in need, expanding the sustainable form of recreation and transportation. Bicycling helps children and adolescents boost physical activity, relieve anxiety, and reduce the risk of obesity. In many ways, the White Oak Bicycle Co-Op was an outgrowth of the pandemic. The group was formed by three friends who realized that, while their lives were disrupted by COVID-19, other lives were turned upside down. The Trust for Public Land became aware of the Co-Op through our work on a one-mile trail connector between Stringer’s Ridge Park in North Chattanooga and White Oak Park in Red Bank. The grant will help the Co-Op purchase a trailer for transporting equipment to events; a tent; work table; tool set, and parts like tubes, chains, and tires, among other things.

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Somali Health Board

The $20,000 grant will strengthen Somali Health Board, a grassroots nonprofit that serves as an effective liaison between the East African community in Tukwila, Washington and public and private resources. The goal of Somali Health Board (SHB) has long been to reduce health disparities in King County’s Somali community. Despite decades of advocacy by SHB, the immigrant community in Tukwila was devastated by COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, the organization responded by delivering masks, food, and toys to community hubs, and even gained national attention for its vaccine rollout to Somali residents, putting Tukwila ahead of the county’s vaccination rate. SHB is a key local partner in a joint initiative that was recently awarded by the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art, through its Building Bridges Program. As part of the initiative, The Trust for Public Land and SHB will mobilize artists to activate local greenspaces, such as Cascade View Park, in an effort to bridge Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

How well are U.S. cities meeting the need for parks? Explore the 2022 ParkScore rankings.