Renew America Success Stories

The Green Guerillas

Description

The Green Guerillas, Inc. is a nonprofit, volunteer urban greening organization in New York City. Its members make the city a better place to live by helping community groups and individuals plant gardens and trees, create parks and develop play and picnic areas where often only concrete and rubble existed before.

The Green Guerillas were formed in 1973 by Liz Christy, a lower east side resident, and her neighbors, to clean up the garbage-strewn, abandoned lots in their area. They take their name from their first urban greening activity -- lobbing peat "grenades" stuffed with wildflower seeds into the lots. Soon after, the efforts of the organization became more formal, but the name stuck.

The Green Guerillas now work in partnership with the city to provide individuals and community groups the tools necessary to convert neighborhood vacant lots into green gardens. The group gets would-be gardeners in touch with the right city agencies to ensure long-term access to the lots, offers horticulture training and provides free plants, shrubs, trees and soil.

"We never go out and simply plant a garden somewhere; communities come to us," says Barbara Earnest, Green Guerillas' Executive Director. "Without community involvement, community investment, the gardens would die as soon as we left."

The efforts of the Green Guerillas to encourage and assist in citywide urban greening have helped to unite people of diverse backgrounds to invest in their neighborhoods and communities. Often, the creation of block associations and increased citizen participation follow the planting of a garden.

"A garden can turn a neighborhood around, give everyone a sense of empowerment, of possibilities, of problems conquered," says Earnest. "Most of all, a garden gives hope."

Program Highlights

How Does the Program Work?

• An individual or group calls the Green Guerillas and expresses an interest in establishing a community garden.
• The Green Guerillas conduct a site visit, make recommendations and draw up a design.
• Volunteers provide technical expertise and labor, and offer free plants, shrubs, trees and soil.
• Volunteers conduct follow up visits to see if materials have been used optimally. They also help the community gardeners work against vandalism, insects and disease.
• The Green Guerillas will provide technical assistance to any gardener, as long as the sponsoring individual or organization provides public access to the garden or provides a social service to the community.

• The Green Guerillas collect and distribute thousands of dollars worth of donated plants and garden supplies to community gardens. The donated materials come from a variety of sources. Recently the Guerillas collected shrubbery from a museum, perennials and large planters from Rockefeller Center, trees from a Park Avenue penthouse, lumber from a closing disco and bulbs from the Parks department.
• The Green Guerillas offer an eight-week job training program in horticulture, providing the homeless with marketable skills.
• The group publishes handbooks, newsletters and fact sheets on gardening.
• The group has developed workshops on topics such as tree planting, the garden in winter, signmaking, wildflower planting and fence making.
• The Green Guerillas recycle Christmas trees in cooperation with the New York City Department of Sanitation, delivering mulch to gardens all over the city.
• The group assists an AIDS resource center with its garden.
• The group is helping residents of a co-op apartment for formerly homeless families plant trees and put in tree guards around their new home.
• The Green Guerillas were featured in the 1991 movie Green Card, starring Andie MacDowell and Gerard Depardieu.

• Trees and plants cool the environment, and will clean and filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year.
• A one-acre lot of trees and vegetation can absorb up to two tons of acid-rain-causing sulphur dioxide.
• Twenty trees can provide the same cooling benefits provided by one air conditioner.

Vital Statistics

Program Management/Partnerships: The Green Guerillas is a nonprofit urban greening organization. The Green Guerillas work with community groups, public service organizations such as shelters for the homeless, schools and AIDS resource and senior centers.

Budget: $167,000 annually.

Community Served: New York city residents committed to strengthening their neighborhoods through an investment in a community garden. Special efforts are made to support low-income, disadvantaged and homeless populations.

Measures of Success:

In 1994, the Green Guerillas offered free of charge nearly $300,000 in donated plant and gardening materials and in technical and volunteer assistance to more than 20,000 New Yorkers in 600 community gardens and 200 institutions citywide.

The more than 350 active volunteers donate more than 15,000 hours each year in working, teaching and learning in community gardens.

In 1989, six of the horticulture training graduates were placed in full-time jobs.

Green Guerilla groups have been formed in Shaftsbury (Vermont), Milwaukee (Wisconsin) and London (England).

Success stories designed by Mark Nowak

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