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New York Tree Trust

BLOCK & NEIGHBORHOOD GRANTS

The Block and Neighborhood Grants program finds donors to support tree planting in communities with few trees but active volunteer networks. These neighborhood projects go beyond simply planting trees by teaming with community groups and volunteers to cultivate stewardship for the new trees. The grant provides funding for tree planting and a tree care tool kit, as well as training through Trees New York classes.

1997	•Our first Block and Neighborhood Grants donor funds the transformation of W. 140th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Seventeen new trees are planted with planning assistance from the block association. Selected members of the block association become certified Citizen Pruners through Trees New York and the association receives tree care tools.
1998	• A donor funds the planting of seven new trees on an otherwise barren block of W. 136th Street. Two active community members are given scholarships to Trees New York's Citizen Pruner class.
1999	•In coordination with The Point, a grassroots neighborhood development organization, 11 new trees are established in the Hunts Point section of the Bronx. •Through the generous support of a private donor, volunteers working with the Edgecombe Block Association help plant 11 bare root trees in a distinctive cluster at Edgecombe Avenue and W. 142nd Street. The trees are planted in coodination with Edgecombe Avenue's Model Block award ceremony.
2000	•Aveda celebrates the opening of their new SoHo Institute by donating seven trees to a previously barred block of Spring Street between Varick Street and Sixth Avenue. Remaining funds are directed to the Stewardship for Young Trees program.
Ongoing	• In 2000 Reliant Energy, formerly Orion Power, new owner of the Astoria Generating Station in Queens, pledges to donate a total of 500 trees in Queens Community Board 1 and Bronx Community Board 1 over the next several seasons. Both communities lie downwind of the plant.