Category Archives: Environment

Understanding Community Identity Through Park Design and Stewardship

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A park clean-up unveils the values, behaviors, and potential of a community

Volunteering at a local park provides a unique opportunity to see a community from a more intimate point of view. A park’s overall design, the activities offered, the special events that take place, the level of involvement by the public in its design and upkeep… these characteristics point towards the social health of a community and reveals its values and behaviors.

I volunteered to take part in a Saturday clean-up at Tompkins Square Park, a 10.5 acre park in the Alphabet City area of the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I was supporting the Friends of Tompkins Square Park – a hyper-local community organization dedicated to enhancing the beauty, health, and safety of the park.

Formed a few decades ago, the group has stepped up their involvement since the COVID pandemic because NYC Parks and Recreation has faced maintenance staff shortages. The residents around the park noticed the park was falling into disrepair and saw an uptick in drug use and homelessness. Friends of Tompkins Square Park increased its involvement and oversight of the park to address these issues and provide a safe, healthy greenspace.

My responsibility for the shift that Saturday was to pick up trash anywhere on the park grounds (such as in the various flower beds and playgrounds). Other groups of volunteers helped plant flowers and mulch around the trees.

The Park as a Reflection of Community:

Examining a park’s design reveals what’s important to a community’s sense of identity – their habits, their community values, and their social structure. It also provides a peek into the future they wish to build together.

If you think about a local park near you – what could its design reveal about your community and its values? For example – How does the design impact who uses the park? Is it designed for diversity of use? Is it inclusive so all people have access to its benefits? How do people gather and interact there? What types of events are held there? How easy is it to get to and use the park?

Tompkins Square Park has a central green lawn area surrounded by winding paths lined with long benches under sun-dappled canopies of a wide variety of trees. The park includes a dog run, 3 children’s playgrounds, chess tables, ping pong tables, a handball court, and a bicycle/skateboard area. Various flower beds provide an oasis of color.  

On this Saturday, there was a children’s educational program underway – one of many workshops and events that were scheduled in the park throughout the year, including a weekly greenmarket and live music shows, among many other activities.

Tompkins Square is designed for family and individual use across a wide variety of preferred activities. It is designed as a central hub for community interaction and for use as part of a healthy lifestyle. It reflects these values of the local community and is a vibrant, healthy, well-maintained green space.

Parks Reflect Current Societal Values and Needs:

During my volunteer shift I learned about the rich history of the park and could see how the design of the park evolved based on the needs and values of the surrounding community.

For example:

In the late 1840s, as over 600,000 immigrants and their families came to live in NYC, the wealthy single-family homes around and near Tompkins Square Park were replaced and/or repurposed into multiple subdivided tenement apartments to house an influx of poor immigrants.

Example of tenements Lower East Side (source: licensing purchased from Alamy; image ID CPJ3J3)

The mostly Irish immigrants at that time were typically young, single, second-class citizens with limited education. They met, married and built families in the Lower East Side and typically worked on the nearby shipbuilding docks.

Densely packed into overcrowded apartments (it was not unusual for up to 5 families – about 20 people – to share one room that measured 12 ft x 12 ft) that lacked light, ventilation, plumbing and sanitation, this hard-working community used the park as a way to have some privacy from family and access a bit of open air. It was also an extension of their homes – livestock such as pigs roamed freely.

Churches popped up around and near the park and soup kitchens set up stations in the park to help feed the poor masses.

Drawing of Tompkins Square Park in 1891 (source: Harper’s Weekly)

Only a few decades later the neighborhood would change drastically, and the park would change too. At the end of the 1800’s, there was a huge influx of German immigrants moving into the neighborhood. Coming mostly as families, they tended to have had some schooling and brought with them their culture, including a long history of the master-journeyman trades relationship (guilds). They brought different skill sets from earlier immigrants and had different ideas about how they wanted their neighborhood to function.

Slaughterhouses, factories, beer gardens, and markets opened. Instead of working at the docks, the community was full of tailors, bakers, cabinet makers and other trades, changing the experience of daily life. These families wanted the park to reflect their values and desired experiences. They formed a community association and petitioned the City. The newly established Department of Parks (1873) revamped the entire park, adding over 450 trees, 2 fountains, benches, a variety of plants and walking paths and 160 gas lamps. The NY Public Library opened a branch along the park in 1887. In 1894 the park became the first NYC park to house a children’s playground. The park had evolved to reflect the values of the community.

Active Stewardship:

Friends of Tompkins Square Park is an example of active stewardship by the community. The group actively engages with various local schools, community groups, and non-profit organizations in their outreach, to encourage active stewardship of the park within the community. They hold regular clean-up days, including most Saturdays, and involve the community in planning local events and activities.

The group is mentored by the City Parks Foundation and works closely with the NY Department of Parks and Recreation, who is ultimately responsible for the park (and over 1,700 other parks throughout NYC).

That Saturday we picked up several bags of trash from the park.

The best part of the day was speaking with the park visitors!

One elderly patron of the park, who was feeding the pigeons when I stopped to chat, spoke about the evolution of the park. She described the park back in the 1980s when it was very different.

Dark Days for the Neighborhood Meant Dark Days for the Park

Going into the 1980s the park was in trouble. The neighborhood’s social structure had changed since the 1960s. Industries and businesses closed or moved out of the area and the neighborhood deteriorated. By the 1980s most buildings in the area were damaged. Landlords lost money as buildings went vacant and so they abandoned them, sometimes setting them on fire to collect insurance money. The homes and buildings on Avenues A and B (which face Tompkins Square Park) were burned out, boarded up and full of junkies. Graffiti was everywhere. Juvenile crime, gang violence and drug use kept people from using the park and it became a haven for homeless squatters, tent cities, gang activity, and drug use/sale.

The community was unhealthy and so was the park.

On the outskirts of the neighborhood, however, a transition was happening. Gentrification was slowly making its way around the edges of the Lower East Side.

The City wanted to step in and take the Park over, instituting a curfew and removing all the homeless and cleaning up the park. They hoped to redevelop the area and encourage a revival. Local resident groups were concerned about encroaching gentrification, and the skyrocketing housing/rent prices it would bring. They were also worried about the poor treatment of the homeless (they wanted them relocated not just removed).

There were protests and rallies in and around the park. But in August 1988, riot police moved in and cleared the homeless camps entirely. By force. Innocent bystanders were clubbed with police riot sticks. Journalists were kicked and arrested. The homeless were beaten and arrested. The next day bulldozers came in and razed everything in the park.

Photos, left to right: John Fensten, Angle Franco (NY Times) and Unknown

It was an important moment for the neighborhood. The entire event was caught on camera and video and was reported on the news, leading to further protests and rallies against the police. In the end, the City did take over the park. Soon after, it closed the park for two years while it was improved and revitalized. During that time gentrification did come to the neighborhood, changing the community as predicted.

What parks can tell us about the future of a community:

Today, Alphabet City and Tompkins Square Park are in the midst of change again. Lower crime rates and higher rents continue to take root. Some buildings have been revamped and others have been torn down and new condo and apartment buildings have been built in their place. Over the past decades immigrants were replaced by artists, poets and musicians, who in turn are now being replaced by today’s young professionals and their families. The park is once again changing to reflect the needs of the community.

Tompkins Square Park and surrounding neighborhood today – a thriving community

Friends of Tompkins Square Park drives active community involvement in the care and future design of the park (active stewardship). It focuses on a shared responsibility for the health of the park. The group is looking to attract a larger, more diverse, membership to ensure both the group, and the park, are resilient and adaptable for the long-term. They are working to bring in artists, writers, students, skaters and musicians from around the world to expand the unique offerings of the park.

They are also working to promote conservation and a love of nature through publishing tree and foliage guides and holding a variety of workshops and events (bird-watching, insect-observing, etc.) for people of all ages. They are working with the park to host a variety of educational programs for students and children in an effort to strengthen next-generation passion for a healthy park.

These actions reflect the power of the future potential of the community and their values of conservation, shared responsibility and a desire for a permanent healthy greenspace.

It will be interesting to see how this park, and other public parks across the Nation, evolve in the years to come. What is “standard” for a park today may be completely different tomorrow as communities evolve. What does that reveal about us? Our beliefs? Our values? Our dreams?

When I registered to participate in their Saturday clean-up, I was excited to get to know a park I had not seen before. I was also looking forward to spending time in an urban green space. I did not realize how much I would learn about the building of a community and the expression of their values and passions.

I don’t think I’ll ever experience a park in quite the same way again. I’ll always be looking at the design, upkeep, and use of the park to see what they uncover about the values, behaviors and dreams of the community that supports it.

How to Get Involved in Your Favorite Park:

  • Have a favorite park near you? Do a Google search to see if there is an active community organization and get involved. It’s easy to join a park clean-up or to set one up yourself. Here is a great article by Kathryn Kellogg from her “Going Zero Waste” website (Homepage – Going Zero Waste) with step-by-step instructions on organizing your own community park clean-up: How to Host a Community Clean Up! – Going Zero Waste
  • Interested in getting to know the flora and fauna of your local park better? The Seek App by iNaturalist (by National Geographic and California Academy of Sciences) lets you snap a photo of any plant,animal, or insect on you phone, and it identifies it for you. You can earn badges and points and there’s no registration required to use the app. Check out: Seek by iNaturalist · iNaturalist
  • Looking for some family fun ideas to explore a park near you? Try my Park Bingo activity here:
Park-BingoDownload

I hope you enjoyed the journey this week! Thank you for coming along.

Do you have a favorite local park? Let me know which one and why in the comments!

XO – Penny

Resources and Research:

Unger, C. (2022, October 19). When Gentrification Hit the Lower East Side: There Goes the Neighborhood. http://www.Curbed.com. Retrieved April 16, 2023, from https://www.curbed.com/article/lower-east-side-east-village-nyc-gentrification.html

O’Sullivan, N. (2013, March 23). Scary tales of New York: Life in the Irish Slums. http://www.irishtimes.com. Retrieved April 16, 2023, from https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/scary-tales-of-new-york-life-in-the-irish-slums-1.1335816#:~:text=Just%20under%20500%2C000%20people%2C%20more%20than%20half%20the,immigrant%20group%20in%20the%20US%20at%20the%20time.

Moses, R. (n.d.). Kleindeutschland: Little Germany in the Lower East Side: Development of Kleindeutschland or Little Germany. http://www.lespi-nyc.org. https://lespi-nyc.org/kleindeutschland-little-germany-in-the-lower-east-side/

Nigro, C. (2018, June 7). Tenement Homes: The Outsized Legacy of New York’s Notoriously Cramped Apartments. http://www.nypl.org. Retrieved April 16, 2023, from https://www.nypl.org/blog/2018/06/07/tenement-homes-new-york-history-cramped-apartments

Van Horn, L. (n.d.). A History of Tompkins Square Park. LESPI-nyc.org. Retrieved April 16, 2023, from https://lespi-nyc.org/a-history-of-tompkins-square-park/

Welcoming Spring: Cherry Blossom Ambassador at Branch Brook Park

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Volunteering with the Branch Brook Park Alliance

Early each Spring Essex County’s Branch Brook Park in Newark, NJ, lights up with millions of cherry blossoms in varied hues of gentle pinks and soft whites, heralding the end of winter.

The park is home to over 5,200 Japanese flowering cherry trees in 18 varieties.

That’s more trees than can be found in the magnificent Washington, DC display (which is about 3,600 trees).

For about 4 weeks in Spring, the trees blossom and paint the landscape with a stunning array of flowers.

How did Branch Brook Park get so many Cherry Blossom Trees?

Many of the original trees planted in Branch Brook Park (just over 2,000) were donated to the Essex County Park System by the Bamberger and Fuld family in 1927.(1)

There were several other donors over the years that donated sets of cherry trees to add to the collection and the Branch Brook Park Alliance continues to purchase and plant trees today.

While some species of cherry trees have long lives (up to 250 years), most varieties are fairly short-lived, averaging 30 – 40 years (2) which means the trees need careful care and occasional replanting for the new generations.

Who cares for the trees?

The Branch Brook Park Alliance is a public/private partnership with the Essex County Department of Parks and Recreation and Cultural Affairs. The Alliance provides ongoing stewardship to the renowned collection as well as cares for the other plants and garden areas within the park. They keep the park clean and beautiful for public use. They help provide volunteers for a variety of events in the park and have ongoing groups of volunteers who help pick up litter and do pruning and maintenance.

The park as it looks today was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1898. He was the famed landscape architect who designed Central Park in NYC. He envisioned Branch Brook as a grand, centralize park of respite for the citizens of the city of Newark.

While Central Park in NYC is known as the first landscaped park in the US, Branch Brook Park is distinguished by being the first county-run/owned park to be opened for public use in the US and it appears in the National Register of Historic Places.(3)

During the brief Cherry Tree Blossom season, which lasts approximately 3-5 weeks, the Alliance plays a key role in both maintenance/upkeep of the park and gardens, and in designing a welcoming and informative visitor experience.

Volunteering

I volunteered with the Branch Brook Park Alliance for a shift as a Cherry Blossom Ambassador.

My role was to welcome visitors as they strolled through the park, sharing details about the trees and the history of the park, and answering any questions they may have.

I also shared maps with them, discussed different blossom viewing areas, and provided directions to key areas such bathroom facilities, nearby restaurants/delis, etc.

And I helped collect donations for the Branch Brook Park Alliance for their educational programs, restoration and maintenance of landscapes, accessibility projects, etc.

Our team-leader and project coordinator was the head of the Branch Brook Park Alliance… Thomas. He started our shift by sharing key details about the park and the trees and getting us ready for what we should expect from the visitors. He continually checked in with the volunteers during the shift to be sure everything was going well and to help answer any visitor questions we could not answer. And people had questions about everything! From the age of some of the trees, to how they could tour the spectacular cathedral that was adjacent to the park, to where they could purchase cherry trees of their own to start a grove in a park in their town, to questions about lanternflies and other pests – Thomas had the answers to all. I learned a ton from him that day!

Most of my day was spent at the Branch Brook Park Alliance table working alongside one of the Alliance staff members. But I also had time to walk around a bit, enjoy the park, and look at the beautiful trees and flowers. Such a wonderful celebration of spring!

Cherry blossoms are an important symbol in Japanese culture. Because they only bloom for a few weeks each year, they represent renewal and the fleeting nature of life.(4)

It was sunny but very windy and chilly the day I volunteered – winter coats and scarves were a must. Winter was reluctant to let go of its grasp.

Even so, there were thousands of visitors to the park that day. Families were picnicking and having parties, groups were walking and taking photos, and children were playing on the lawns.

The blossoms were at the very beginning of opening their blooms, just peeking out, but it was still spectacular!

What does the park look like when all the trees are blooming?

Here are some photos of the park in full bloom:

As you can see from all the photos in this blog post, the flowers are amazing any time during their bloom cycle!

You can celebrate Cherry Blossom Season from wherever you are!

You don’t have to visit Branch Brook Park in Newark, NJ to celebrate the season (although if you live anywhere nearby I would highly encourage you to do so). You can celebrate spring and enjoy the blooms from wherever you are with these activities:

First – learn more about the Cherry Blossoms and the Branch Brook Park Alliance, by visiting their website at: https://branchbrookpark.org/cherryblossoms.html

You can also donate to support their educational programs, to maintain sustainable landscapes, and to support complex renewal projects at: https://branchbrookpark.org/donate.html

Second – You can experience the amazing Cherry Blossoms of Branch Brook Park from anywhere in the world through the Alliance’s Live Web Cam. They have two cameras set up – one on the north end of the park and one on the south, so you get great views: http://ecpo2.packetalk.net:5350/IVC/views.htm#

Third – You can have your own Cherry Blossom Party, celebrating the arrival of spring! Here’s how:

Try a fun cherry-blossom-inspired mocktail recipe the whole family will love:

  • Pour pink lemonade into a glass about 2/3 full. Add a large scoop of pineapple sherbet into the cup. Add a few fresh cherries on the top and enjoy! If you’re super-creative, add a few spots of canned whipped cream to mimic the petals of the flowers.

Try writing a Haiku about Spring. A Haiku is a Japanese poetic form that consists of 3 lines, with 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second and 5 in the third. Here’s one I wrote to get your creative juices flowing:

Learn a few beautiful Japanese vocabulary words about the season:

Finally – download the coloring page below and let your imagination go wild with the colors of spring!

Author/creator of coloring page: Lena London – This coloring page is a derivative work) (tracing copy of photography work). Original image credit: Cherry blossoms in Vancouver photo by Eviatar Bach Permission: Free for personal, educational, editorial or commercial use. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License.

Cherry-Blossom-coloring-pageDownload

I hope you’ve enjoyed journeying with me and the Branch Brook Park Alliance to experience the beautiful cherry blossom trees at Branch Brook Park in Newark, NJ. If you create a Haiku or color the page, share them – I’d love to see your creations!

XO XO – Penny

Citations in Article:

(1) Baker, C. (2010). Cherry Blossom Land at Branch Brook Park: A Bamberger-Fuld Legacy. AuthorHouse. https://doi.org/ISBN-13:978-1452000145

(2) Maloney, M. (2019, April 2). How Cherry Blossoms Became the Most Celebrated Event of the Spring. Town & Country. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/a27008901/cherry-blossom-facts/

(3) (n.d.). Branch Brook Park (About). Essex County Department of Parks, Recreation and Cultural Affairs. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://essexcountyparks.org/parks/branch-brook-park/about#:~:text=Branch%20Brook%20Park%2C%20the%20nation’s,trees%20in%20the%20United%20States.

(4) Takeda, E. (2014, April 9). Significance of Sakura: Cherry Blossom Traditions in Japan. Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://festival.si.edu/blog/2014/significance-of-sakura-cherry-blossom-traditions-in-japan/#:~:text=Cherry%20blossoms%20are%20a%20symbolic,colleagues%2C%20friends%2C%20and%20family.

Aw Shucks! Don’t Be Shy… How the Little Oyster Can Help Save NY from the Impact of Climate Change

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Volunteering with the Billion Oyster Project

When you think of oysters, what comes to mind? Fresh oysters on the half shell served with horseradish or lemon or sriracha sauce?  Broiled Rockefeller style oysters, topped with herbs, butter and breadcrumbs? YUM!

What about as a keystone species that plays both an essential role in the ecosystems of shorelines, and can help solve the challenges of the impact of climate change?

The Billion Oyster Project (BOP) is focused on this unassuming, yet very powerful, resource, by pledging to restore 1 billion oysters to the NY harbor by 2035.

Since 2014 BOP has worked with various NYC communities, schools, scientists, and volunteers, to restore oysters at 18 active restoration sites across the 5 NYC boroughs.

They have developed a K-12 STEM curriculum and work with over 100 schools across NYC with hands-on activities to help students become citizen-scientists working to solve local environmental challenges.

They work with the Urban Assembly NY Harbor School, helping prepare students of the HS on Governors Island for maritime careers. And they also have involved almost 15,000 volunteers at various projects to help be part of the restoration process. Building a community focused on helping the community!

Why Oysters?

Top 3 key environmental roles the oyster plays:

  1. One single adult oyster filters up to 50 gallons of water a day! They absorb nitrates, ammonia, phosphates, plankton, and bacteria, and reduce excess algae and sediment. Oysters help keep the water clean and full of oxygen.
  2. The reefs oysters create together are natural barriers that protect shorelines from erosion, tides, and storm surge (reducing flooding, softening the blow of large waves, and preventing erosion).
  3. Like coral reefs, oyster reefs foster biodiversity by providing a 3-D living. clean, oxygen-filled habitat for hundreds of species of marine wildlife.

Back before Henry Hudson traveled up the New York river that was to eventually be given his name, oysters were everywhere and had long been a staple food of the local Lenape peoples. Archeological evidence of mounds of shells (called middens) up to 4 feet high date back to 6950 BCE (1) and reveal that oysters were not only plentiful, but were much larger than the kind we see today – up to a foot long on average and many much longer! (2) 

Oysters, Oysters Everywhere!

In the early 1600’s, with the arrival of Henry Hudson and the Europeans, the New York harbor was home to over 350 sq. miles(3) of oyster beds.

It is said, from writings at that time, it was easy to reach into the water and pluck out large oysters like fruit from a tree.

Through the late 1700s, nearly half the world’s oysters were produced in the NY Harbor.(2)

In fact, Oysters were the original street vendor food. In the mid to late 1700s and early 1800s (long before the hot dog), street cart vendors selling oysters along with hot corn, peanuts and buns, were ubiquitous throughout the streets of New York.

By 1927, however, oysters in the New York harbor were all but extinct due to:

  • Over-farming/over-consumption,
  • The expansion of NY – the dredging of the harbor and extension of the tip of NY was built over oyster beds,
  • Pollution – The drastic increase in shipping and boat traffic in the harbor along with (up until 1972, with the passage of the Clean Water Act) the dumping of millions of gallons of raw, untreated sewage in the harbor every day, killed oyster beds in droves. Note here – unfortunately NYC’s combined sewer system still ejects sewage with storm water during peak flow – once it hits 1/4 inch high – continuing to damage beds and pollute the waterways).(4) EWWW!

Volunteering

As a volunteer, I was signed up to help a group build oyster reef structures, called gabions, and prepare shells for the hatchery by sifting through them for unwanted debris. It was a 5-hour shift (including a lunch break). There were about 15-20 people volunteering that day.

We started the day with a group meeting where our host-leader, Inca, had us introduce ourselves and explained all about the process of growing oysters and creating a reef. They also gave us some of the history of the Billion Oyster Project. It was very interesting! Throughout the day Inca was there to give guidance and answer the tons of questions we seemed to have. They were wonderful and kept us motivated and the day exciting!

A gabion is a steel mesh cube that fits snugly into a raw bar steel frame. There are hollow columns in the middle of the structure to allow water, air, and nutrients to flow through (as well as marine life). The structure provides a strong, current-resistant, 3-D environment.

It is filled with juvenile oysters that have attached themselves to recycled oyster shells (they are called spat). The juveniles are raised in a safe environment at the Harbor School Hatchery then, once established and strong enough, moved into the gabions.

The gabions are then placed in areas where reefs are being developed. Over time, the mesh degrades, but the steel frame remains, while the newly-planted oysters grow and cement together.

Our job was to construct as many of the mesh gabions as possible during our shift. Staff from the BOP were on hand to provide educational lessons and to answer our ongoing questions.

Since 2014, BOP has restored 100 million juvenile oysters in the harbor. Over the past year or so they have found the oysters are starting to reproduce by themselves in the harbor. An exciting sign the population can become self-sustaining! In addition, BOP is now finding a wider variety of marine life around the oyster reefs, such as crabs, seahorses, pufferfish, herring, striped bass, red bearded sponges and more.

In order to grow the oysters to create the reefs, BOP needs millions and millions of shells.

So… where do all the shells come from? 

BOP partners with over 70 restaurants in NYC to collect the discarded shells of oysters consumed by their patrons.

BOP provides special buckets for collection and then partners with a shell collection service to pick them up and dump them onto long, 4-5 foot high piles of shells on Governors Island (middens).
These 70+ restaurants can donate up to 7,000 pounds of shells a week!

Since 2014 they have collected over 2+ million pounds of recycled shells, repurposing them to build the oyster reefs and keeping them out of landfills. Yet another way BOP is caring for the environment.

The second part of the volunteer shift was to help look through the middens (the piles of recycled shells donated by restaurants) for objects that don’t belong such as plastic bags and bottles, metal forks and other cutlery, rocks, etc. We also threw away any mussel shells since those would harm the oyster beds.

The middens were 4 to 5 feet tall about 25-30 feet long. They shells deposited there are first picked clean by the birds and critters and cleaned by the sun and rain. The piles are turned intermittently so they can get exposed to all that happens. They rest there about a year. Then there’s a manual cleaning with a tumbler that scrubs them the rest of the way so they are ready to be taken to the hatchery to become part of the project.

The hatchery is a set of semi-open, topless shipping containers where the baby oysters are able to latch onto the cleaned shells and grow to juveniles in a less hostile environment than the open harbor.

Harbor water still flows through the hatchery, but the hatchlings are semi-protected until they are deemed strong enough to be put into the open harbor.

By the end of the day’s volunteer shift, we’d made about 6 or 7 of the gabions and had learned tons from our BOP guide and team member.

It was a fascinating day!

I hope you enjoyed the journey with me. XO XO

How do I Learn More and Get Involved?

To learn more about the Billion Oyster Project and oyster reefs, or donate to this amazing cause, please visit their website at: https://www.billionoysterproject.org/

If you are a teacher and are interested in their resources and educational materials/curriculum, please check out: https://www.billionoysterproject.org/educators
(note – they have wonderful materials for every classroom – you do NOT need to be a NYC school to participate or find value in the materials)

Source Citations:

(1) Wood, S. (n.d.). Pearls of Old New York. Fraunces Tavern Museum. https://www.frauncestavernmuseum.org/pearls-of-old-new-york

(2) Nigro, C. (2011, June 2). History on the Half Shell: The Story of New York City and Its Oysters. Blog of the New York Public Library. Retrieved April 2, 2023, from https://www.nypl.org/blog/2011/06/01/history-half-shell-intertwined-story-new-york-city-and-its-oysters

(3) Kurlansky, M. (2007). The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell. Random House Trade Paperback.

(4) Hynes, T. (2022, August 4). Aw Shucks: The Tragic History of New York City Oysters. Untapped New York. Retrieved April 2, 2023, from https://untappedcities.com/2022/08/04/history-new-york-oysters/

(5) Ellis, E. R. (2004). Epic of New York City: A Narrative History. Basic Books, Reprint Edition. https://doi.org/ISBN-13:‎ 978-0786714360

Going Wild with the New York WILD Film Festival

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I’ll tell you how the sun rose that morning in Tsavo National Park, Kenya – just like all other mornings for days on end. There’s nothing casual about mid-February sun in Tsavo. It rises early and immediately unleashes an inescapable tsunami of heat across the land. Then, happy with its work, the sun stands guard in a cloudless sky, both like a fierce sentinel and a tyrannous explorer, relentlessly finding every tiny crevasse and crack in the parched land. Dancing heat along the horizon shimmers and sparkles as if in great celebration of the quest.

Photo 60040206 / Termite Mound © Volodymyr Byrdyak 
| Dreamstime.com (subcription)

Across these southern plains of Kenya, communities of termites are building their mounds. They excavate nutrient-rich soil from deep underground and transport it to the surface, building their structures higher and higher, reaching to the sky, seeking fruitlessly to touch any possible breeze. But there is none. Not yet. Not until the deluge of the rains come in March.

The dirt the termites excavate is packed with minerals and nutrients not available otherwise in the surrounding soil of the plains. Over time, battered by seasonal rains, wind, heat and wildlife, the mounds eventually erode and leave large patches of bare soil filled with nutrients. These patches dot the landscape like freckles across the dusty plains.

They are a perfect visiting spot for families of elephants, who are drawn to the patches for the rich nutrients and salts in the clay…. minerals the elephants need for survival.

Photo 96834699 / Elephants © Klomsky | Dreamstime.com (subcription)

The elephant families come and dig into the patches, scraping up the nutrient-rich soil with their feet and tusks and leaving behind an indented area. Slowly, over time, the indented clay patch becomes deeper and deeper as more elephants visit. Then it rains.

Rainy season brings with it a deluge of life-giving water and the fine, mineral-rich clay of the patches becomes sticky mud. The elephants love it – they dig in it and spray the mud on themselves and each other. They wallow in it and roll in it and splash it all over themselves. The mud coats their bodies, head to toe, keeping them cool and protecting them from sunburn and biting flies.

Each elephant family carries away up to a ton of mud with them, so the indented freckle becomes a larger indented spot, and eventually a deeper hole that continues to widen and deepen with each visit. Within a few years, what the termites started, and the elephants created, becomes a full watering hole. An oasis in the plains, full of life….

This was part of the story shared in the independent documentary film “The Elephant and the Termite”- one of 35 powerful and exhilarating documentaries shown at the 9th Annual New York Wild Film Festival.

The Elephant and the Termite won the Best Cinematography award and it was easy to see why.

The film was enchanting and stunning – silhouettes of elephants against an orange sunset, the deep greens of chameleons poised perfectly on seasonal grasses, drinking crystal clear drops of water, underwater shots and close-ups of wildlife of all types (birds, insects, mammals). It was hard to pull myself away from the film!

Me at the “paparazzi” screen

The festival ran 4 days, and I was super-excited to be chosen to volunteer for a shift on Saturday, welcoming guests and generally helping guests however and wherever possible.

There were a team of volunteers who helped check people in, provided guidance to find film showings and reception areas, answered questions, helped usher people to their seats, organized gift baskets, helped set up and break-down, and more

While films were in process the volunteers had opportunity to watch some of the films from a separate viewing area. It was inspiring and emotional to watch parts of the films!

The NY WILD Film Festival is the first annual film festival in NY to showcase a spectrum of topics that bring attention to wildlife, conservation, exploration, and the environment. It is held every March.

2023 Event Poster

More than ever, people are fascinated with the natural world and phenomenon that affects it. There is a quickly-awakening awareness of human impact on our planet and a growing feeling of urgency to live differently in order to save it.

People want to connect with our planet and understand how to do better for the natural world.

The NY WILD Film Festival provides an active platform creating excitement around crucial issues, gives a voice to critical issues, builds important partnerships with key players in exploration and conservation, highlights dedicated scientists and explorers, celebrates filmmakers, and reaches growing audiences – spreading energy around protecting our planet. Films run anywhere between 5 and 90 minutes.

There were films by filmmakers from all over the world (USA, Brazil, France, China, Mexico, Kenya, Canada and more) and that diversity of experience and perspective was truly inspiring. The festival also includes Q&A sessions with filmmakers, explorers and experts.

It was exhilarating for ticket-holders to be able to watch the films, be moved by the powerful images and storytelling of the filmmakers, and then meet the heroes protecting our planet for Q&A sessions.

There were various receptions, award presentations, and on-line auction, and even a family program for children ages 7+.  

The festival presented an extraordinary opportunity to exchange ideas and effect change. Over 300 films were originally submitted, which were initially vetted by a group of pre-screeners, who chose a large number of films to go to a Final Jury for selection of the final 35.

The festival runs in partnership with The Explorers Club (the festival was held in its NYC location), the WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), FujiFilm, Acr’teryx, Flite, and The New Yorker Documentary.

I left that day feeling that while there is much to do to save the planet, there is an extensive network of passionate, powerful, action-oriented teams of people looking to solve issues and make the world a better place for future generations! I am inspired to get more involved in making a difference and continuing to learn more about the synergistic human-wildlife-planet experience. Each of us already have impact – it’s up to us to make that impact positive or negative.

How do you celebrate the wild? What passions do you have for the planet? Leave me a comment below.

If you’re interested in learning more about the New York WILD Film Festival, to join their mailing list and to keep an eye out for tickets for next year’s festival, check out their site here: https://nywildfilmfestival.com/

This is the link to the inspiring and powerful trailer for the 2023 film festival here (you’ll be glad you watched it and I bet you can’t just watch it once): https://vimeo.com/802503624

If you’d like to learn more about my favorite film of the day I volunteered, The Elephant and the Termite, PBS has a learning media site with clips: https://ny.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/nat40-creating-waterholes-video/elephant-and-termite-nature-season-40/

If you are a member of PBS Thirteen Passport, you can watch the film in entirety here: https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/elephant-and-termite-about-depsre/26434/

External view of Explorer’s Club

A note about The Explorer’s Club – As hosting partner to the festival, The Explorers Club is a perfect location for the event. Founded in New York City in 1904 by a group of the world’s leading explorers of the time, the not-for-profit organization is dedicated to scientific exploration of land, sea, air, and space by supporting research and education in the physical, natural and biological sciences.

The Club’s members have been responsible for an illustrious series of famous firsts: first to the North Pole, first to the South Pole, first to the summit of Mount Everest, first to the deepest point in the ocean, first to the surface of the moon.

The building is stunning – 5 floors filled with artifacts and photos from explorations and scientific breakthroughs. You can spend hours just looking around!

You can learn more about the Explorer’s Club and their programs and public events here:  https://www.explorers.org/

Thank you for joining my journey! XO XO

Collaborative Consumption and the Sharing Economy: the Grassroots Efforts of the Sustainable Fashion Community Center

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Clothing is more than functional. Our clothes tell our story. They offer clues about our personality and reflect the image we see in ourselves. They can symbolize our values, share our secrets, give us confidence to go out into the world, send silent messages, and even communicate rebellion or solidarity with others. Our clothes are an integral part of our identity, our self-image, our psyche.

Yet at the same time, the current mainstream clothing textile industry is neither sustainable nor future-oriented. Fashion is part of a linear economy that uses resources to make goods to be sold solely for profit, then disposes of anything not needed, from manufacturing scraps, materials and dyes… to the end product. The rise of “fast fashion” by brands such as Shein, Primark, and others, create profit margins by reducing costs (cheaper fabrics and quality) and speeding up production time, which can mean cutting environmental corners and unjust labor practices. In addition, the majority of the fashion industry pushes clothing designed to be replaced seasonally with updated fashion trends. Ultimately, the raw materials, and end products, end up burned or in the garbage dump. Wasted resources polluting our planet and adding to the environmental crises.

According to research by the American Chemical Society, since the 2000s, fashion production has doubled and it will likely triple by 2050. (1)  The production of polyester, used for cheap and fast fashion, as well as athleisure wear, has increased nine-fold in the last 50 years(2). Because some clothing lines have become so cheap, consumers find it easy to discard items after being worn only a few times. One survey found that 20 percent of clothing in the US is never worn.(3)  A study by Grow NYC found the average New Yorker tosses 46 pounds of clothing and other textiles in the trash each year, at a cost to taxpayers and our environment.(4)

Overall, the Fashion Industry is responsible for 10 percent of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions and 20 percent of global wastewater, using more energy than the aviation and shipping sectors combined.(5)

Sounds grim, right? Luckily, things are slowly changing. Many reputable brands are starting to take sustainability seriously and are making efforts to improve production methods. And there are tons of local grassroots efforts popping up across the country that focus on new methods of managing production, sale and use of textile and clothing.

The Sustainable Fashion Community Center (SFCC) in East Harlem is one of a growing group of these grassroots organizations offering a solution. A clothing swap shop, member-led pop-up, educational center, and clothing recycling center, the SFCC is a hive of activity within the vibrant East Harlem neighborhood.

Shoppers can shop in one of three ways – they can pay a $15 fee for 10 items, they can swap clothing items 1 to 1, or they can purchase items at bargain prices during shop days. I happened to be volunteering on a shop day when everything in the store was $1.

Lots of donated clothes to sort

Teams of volunteers work 3-hour shifts of sorting, hanging, organizing, and general housekeeping activities. As a thank you, volunteers can “straight-swap” up to 10 pieces (meaning swap out items you bring for new-to-you items you take from the store). On any given day, handfuls of volunteers keep the store stocked and check in new items.

The SFCC is an example of collaborative consumption, a socio-economic model which focuses on sharing access to products with the goal of increasing usage of unwanted or underutilized products. The sharing economy is an alternative to the contemporary marketplace, focusing on reducing new product acquisition, increasing product reuse, and extending product lifecycle.

The SFCC also hosts pop-up clothing swaps , in person and virtual workshops, has an educational program, and has a clothing recycling program where items donated but not sellable are gathered, weighed, and picked up by NYC as part of their clothing recycling program.

Designer items and brand-new items are sold on PoshMark to raise funds to run the SFCC, and they collect used sneakers for recycling and use by other non-profits who send shoes to the needy in the US and other countries.

On the day I volunteered, there were many clients in and out of the space, enjoying perusing the racks and chatting with Founder, Andrea Reyes, who is a fountain of knowledge about sustainable fashion. Her passion is inspiring from the moment you enter the door.

Jackets for sale

The second-hand clothing culture is designed for intimate interaction with the clothes and the community and the SFCC is fully immersed in providing a special client experience. It promotes a unique emotional connection to textiles, where participants first experience an emotional release from cleaning out and decluttering their closets, knowing that by doing so they are helping bring others joy and are helping the environment.

The children’s racks

The store itself is welcoming and designed for touch, try on, and conversation. There is a strong blend of somatic and emotional experiences as shoppers are encouraged to touch the fabrics and try on items, play dress up, and try new styles outside of their comfort zone.

There’s also a practical piece – monetary benefits of swapping out high-quality clothes you no longer wear for new-to-you wardrobe items. And Andrea ensures the experience is a positive one, reminding shoppers they are preventing clothing from going to the landfill and that they are reducing consumption of virgin resources by participating in the swap.

Many of the clients were repeat clients. One shopper said they loved the positive moral feeling – that they were reducing environmental pollution and they loved finding vintage and unusual items to add to their closet.

Swapping, in a way, helps people understand the benefits of the art of letting go and decluttering, while also helping them reflect on our capitalistic society’s psychological want to continuously acquire more. It expands perspectives around certain aspects of capitalism.

I also spoke with first-time shoppers curious about the uniqueness of the experience. One younger shopper loved the idea of engaging in anti-consumption, counter-cultural, behavior where consumers become both the supplier and the consumer.

Andrea spoke of the circular economy grassroots efforts like the SFCC promote – where the earth is understood as a vulnerable system with limited natural resources, and thus the importance of using as few raw materials as possible. An endless cycle of reuse and recycling for the benefit of all – keeping the value of raw materials and produced goods as high as possible for as long as possible.

It is an inspiring message and exchanging clothing extends the life of the item over and over again.

A study by Wrap (UK) found that when you decide to extend the life of your clothing for just nine months, you cause a 25-30% reduction of your water and carbon footprint and have other positive environmental impacts.(6) The SFCC, and organizations like it, is transforming the contemporary fashion marketplace model and people’s relationships with the products, as well as reshaping what consumers demand from brands (sustainable, environmentally low-impact clothing).

I traded in several items in an effort to reduce the amount of clothing I’ve collected in my closet, and traded it all in for a blouse I fell in love with on sight!

Want to learn more about the Sustainable Fashion Community Center? Check out their website through the NYC Fair Trade Coalition at: https://nycftc.com/

Looking to get involved in the collaborative consumption culture? You can buy new-to-you and upcycled clothing on websites such as Etsy and PoshMark, and by shopping at vintage clothing stores, swap shops and even local government-agency and/or non-profit-run used clothing stores (Goodwill, etc.).

Want to get involved hyper-locally? Why not set up a clothing swap or fashion exchange with a group of friends or at your local school (children’s clothes are PERFECT for swapping). Not sure how to host one? I’ve put together some simple instructions here: https://52weeksofcharity.blog/2023/03/08/3920/

If you shop new-to-you clothing, share some photos with me and share your story. I’d love to hear about it!

Sources for Citations:

Textile Recycling – FabScrap Focuses on a Sustainable Future

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I emerged from the 59th St. Subway station in Sunset Park, Brooklyn into a vibrant, energetic neighborhood. Blocks of 3-5 story, multi-tenant, walk-up brick apartment buildings lined the streets, many with small Asian or Hispanic shops, bakeries, and restaurants on the first level. A happy, multi-lingual chatter of families filled the air as parents escorted their children to morning drop-off at local elementary school PS 503/506.

Crossing 3rd Avenue, the sky was blocked by the elevated Gowanus Expressway. I could hear the muffled rumbling of traffic overhead. Busy delivery trucks and taxis carefully made their way up 3rd, dodging construction teams working on the underside of the Gowanus.

I was headed to volunteer with FabScrap – New York City’s largest fashion recycling organization – whose goal is to help end commercial textile waste by recycling waste generated during pre-production and production of consumer products.

Located in the Brooklyn Army Terminal, FabScrap works with teams of volunteers to help sort and recycle over 2,000 pounds of fabric a week – keeping it out of landfills.

Site photos are mine. Arial photo from Google Search

The Brooklyn Army Terminal is tucked against the edge of the community, along the NY Bay. During WWII it was the United States’ largest military supply base, a sprawling complex of two enormous warehouses and a spattering of other buildings, spanning 6 blocks, 9 floors, and 55 acres. The warehouses themselves completely dwarf the buildings in the surrounding neighborhood. Today, the complex is used for commercial and light industrial/manufacturing use, artist studios, and maker-spaces.

FabScrap is in Building B, at the far end of a long internal atrium that once was a busy hub for weapons and supplies, but now seems weary and out of place and time. The metal frame of a once-glass-ceilinged dome sits rusting to the elements and open to the sky. An old, WWII-era train sits decomposing on moss-covered rusty rails leading up either side of the atrium. Dozens of cantilevered concrete ledges run up and along both sides. Each ledge buts up against metal garage door entrances, some long defunct. Large, chicken-wire frosted windows line each floor.

This morning was grey and drizzling and stepping into the atrium I took in a sharp, deep, breath. I felt as if I had entered an apocalyptic dystopian movie set. The air felt weary. A musty smell and the sound of the drizzle on sets of metal chairs and tables added to the chill.

Hidden beyond the atrium are over three million square feet of renovated space. The Terminal is a highly functioning industrial complex that houses over 100 businesses and 4,000+ good manufacturing jobs!

On the far side across the atrium, up on the 5th floor, FabScrap takes in more fabric than it can process most weeks (up to 3,000 – 5,000 pounds). They work with well over 400 NYC clothing labels, designers, furniture companies, and costume studios to help recycle their manufacturing waste (642 brands between NY and their second location in Philly).

FabScrap provides these companies color-coded canvas bags into which excess fabrics are placed (brown for general waste and black for proprietary fabrics the brand indicates cannot be resold or reused). This can be fabric swatches they no longer need, or fabric scraps from making sample items. Sometimes clients send damaged or unfinished samples as well. Clients leave the paper/cardboard headers, tags, and stickers still attached so FabScrap can identify the type and composition of the fabric.

Some of the fabric I sorted (left) and one I found in the scrap room (right)

FabScrap charges a small, tax-deductible pickup fee and provides empty bags at every pickup. The bags are brought back to the warehouse for sorting and recycling by teams of volunteers. This morning the volunteers were a mix of artists, quilters, regular citizens, and students from FIT – whose programs mandate a certain number of hours volunteering so students are introduced to the often-unseen side of textile production.

Each volunteer had a table for sorting, surrounded by bins labeled for each type of material. Our job was to pull apart bundles of fabric then remove paper, pins, stickers, and staples, and sort the fabric into the bins.

It is a very manual, time-consuming, and tedious process and up to 11 volunteers help during any 3-hour session.

Behind us, across the length of the warehouse room, was a floor-to-ceiling hill of pristine textiles in trash bags, waiting to be sorted.

After sorting, the fabric has a variety of end uses. Proprietary material and small scraps are shredded to create a colorful pulp called shoddy, which will be used to create insulation, carpet padding, furniture lining and moving blankets. Non-proprietary material is used by students, artists, crafters, quilters, sewers, teachers, and even other clothing designers who focus on eco-wear.

How much commercial textile waste is generated each year in NYC alone? It’s hard to say as there is no current industry model for tracking and laws in most states are non-existent. NYC has passed a regulation that all businesses are required to recycle textiles if textiles are over 10% of the business’ waste.

According to Grow NYC, the average New Yorker tosses 46 pounds of clothing and other textiles in the trash each year. All told, that’s almost 200,000 tons of textiles every year.(1) It is estimated that commercial textile waste could be as high as 40x consumer/residential waste.

Designers have difficulty recycling their textile waste. There is a lack of recycling options, recycling partners, and infrastructure, and commercial fabric scraps do not fit into the current resell-at-thrift or donation models. FabScrap steps into this space to help NYC designers and brands recycle their waste.

An example of shoddy

They also provide each company an “Impact Report,” which includes the end use of all sorted materials, the total weight diverted from the landfill, and the overall environmental impact. FabScrap has another warehouse location in Philadelphia which they launched in 2021.

According to Fabscrap’s annual report from 2021, they saved 305,977 pounds of fabric, 90% of which was recycled or reused and only 3% ended up in a landfill. They saved over 1,400 tons of CO2 emissions – the equivalent of planting over 20,000 trees.(2)

After each 3-hour shift, volunteers are able to choose and take home up to 5 pounds of material for free, either from their own sorting piles or from the large fabric recycle room. There were so many choices it took a solid hour for me to decide what I wanted!

In the end I took home materials to make two throw pillows for my couch – and a great experience and story to share with others! On my subway ride back to Manhattan, I thought about fast fashion and how often I’ve “cleaned my closet” by tossing clothes. While I tend to donate ones in good condition, I had been throwing away certain well-worn items. I think I’ll be trying to figure out how to reuse the fabric instead for potholders, to make fabric-rope baskets, maybe for quilting… What would you do with your unwanted clothing going forward? Send me some suggestions!

References:

The Environmental Defense Center: 50 Years of Protection, Advocacy and Education

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Me at the gate

 

Pockets of rain passed overhead on the 2 mile walk to the Environmental Defense Center’s (EDC) headquarters in Santa Barbara, California. It is impossible to ignore the breathtaking beauty of the area… even in the rain.

 

Behind me spread peaceful, wide beaches, shaped by the waves of thousands of years. Before me rose the undulating foothills of the imposing and majestic Santa Ynez Mountains, its tops hidden by thick shreds of clouds. Santa Barbara is nestled here, in this oasis. Read more

Week 48: The Arctic Eider Society

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Sometimes charity work puts you in contact with people and places you’ll never have the opportunity to see first-hand. Even without that first-hand contact, these interactions can become a path towards broadening your understanding of humanity and learning more about this amazing world. Such was my connection with The Arctic Eider Society, a non-profit working with Inuit and Cree communities in the far Northern Canadian Greater Hudson Bay area. Their focus is on understanding environmental changes and working with local communities to address food security, safety and environmental stewardship in this critical and understudied region of the arctic. Read more

Week 32: DoSomething.Org – Empowering Youth and Young Adults to Get Involved and Get Active (because apathy sucks!)

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logoDoSomething.org is the future of volunteer and activism experiences. The non-profit uses a digital platform to power offline action through hundreds of grass-roots volunteer, social change, awareness and civic action campaigns.

 

 

Words on flower

Targeted at ages 13 – 30, the campaigns can be completed by individuals or groups, without any need for transportation, funding by participants, or oversight. Young adults love to get involved and make a difference. They are passionate about causes they identify with. DoSomething.org taps into that potential and makes getting active super easy and super fun, empowering teens and young adults to drive social change.

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