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Volunteers Invited to Help Enhance Green Space at NYCHA`s Beach 41st Street Houses in Rockaway
New York City, NY, May 13, 2016 - USDA Forest Service scientists with the New York City Urban Field Station will work with local organizations and Rockaway community members to plant more than 800 plants at the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) Beach 41st Street Houses on Saturday, May 21, to create a new garden and enhance green space.
The New York City Urban Field Station, a partnership between the USDA Forest Service and the New York City Parks and Recreation Department, is seeking to engage 100 volunteers to help with the project. Volunteers will meet at 9 a.m. at the Beach 41st Cornerstone Community Center 426 Beach 40th street, Rockaway, NY, (Corner of B40th and Beach Channel Drive) for a morning snack and sign-in.
The planting event is sponsored by the New York City Urban Field Station in partnership with NYCHA, Till Design, and Natural Garden Landscape with support from the City of New York Department of Parks and Recreation, the New York Restoration Project, and Green City Force.
This event is part of a larger research initiative funded by the TKF Foundation Nature Sacred program called “Landscapes of Resilience.” Led by Forest Service scientists from the New York City Urban Field Station, working with Cornell University, Landscapes of Resilience focuses on the capacity for community engagement in greening to contribute to the social resilience of affected places, as well as the importance of green spaces in the context of city resilience strategies. The research is rooted in two separate natural disasters: an EF5 tornado that devastated Joplin, Mo., in May 2011, and Superstorm Sandy, which devastated New York City in October 2013. While these cities have distinct features and unique experiences, the common thread of rebuilding life after disaster binds them.
Volunteers are asked to RSVP Lindsay Campbell of the New York City Urban Field Station via e-mail at: lindsaycampbell@fs.fed.us
Please include your name; if you are part of a stewardship organization and will be volunteering as a group, please include the number of volunteers participating and wear a T-shirt reflecting your stewardship group.
The U.S. Forest Service is an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a mission of sustaining the health, diversity and productivity of the nation’s forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The mission of the Forest Service's Northern Research Station is to improve people’s lives and help sustain the natural resources in the Northeast and Midwest through leading-edge science and effective information delivery.
The U.S. Forest Service manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to state and private landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world. Public lands the Forest Service manages contribute more than $13 billion to the economy each year through visitor spending alone. Those same lands provide 20 percent of the nation’s clean water supply, a value estimated at $7.2 billion per year. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of the 850 million forested acres within the U.S., of which 100 million acres are urban forests where most Americans live. For more information, visit www.fs.usda.gov/.
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