The Parks & People Foundation, in partnership with the Baltimore Community Foundation and the Cleaner Greener Baltimore Initiative, provides up to $1,000 as Neighborhood Greening Grants for groups interested in conducting projects such as tree plantings, community gardens, vacant lot clean-ups and restoration, neighborhood clean-ups, schoolyard greening, water quality improvement and environmental education activities. Grant funds may also be used for tools, plant material, equipment and other needed supplies.
BaltimoreCity’s Sustainability Plan includes a goal of having green space accessible within ¼ mile of every resident. This program helps move another step closer to attaining that goal.
Parks & People has found that when outdoor spaces are healthy, utilized, vibrant and green, community residents are more engaged and invested in their neighborhoods. This is the type of sustainable environment that we work to create in neighborhoods, particularly underserved neighborhoods, throughout Baltimore.
This approach to community development and watershed restoration has been validated through practical and academic evidence such as research produced by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Researchers there found that people in neighborhoods where there is public green space experience a stronger sense of community, have closer relationships with their neighbors, and report feeling safer. As the body of research around community development grows, the critical importance of greening in urban neighborhoods and of Parks & People’s work within the context of successful community building is underscored. For example, new research conducted by The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania offers solid evidence that investment in greening can stabilize and improve property values as well as quality of life.
Liz Alex, with the Southeast CDC in Baltimore’s Highlandtown provides this testimonial: “Perhaps the greatest impact of our Community Greening project was the community connections that have been realized. Several of these residents have become involved in other neighborhood association activities, including Citizens on Patrol, a community clean-up campaign and have worked with the neighborhood associations to receive funding from the Baltimore Community Foundation. Those funds were used to add carriage lights to the front of homes. In addition to being an attractive visual statement it serves as a step toward improving safety at night.”
Glenn Ross, with McElderry Park Community Association, provides another testimony: “We loved this project because of the partnerships that have been formed with organizations able to provide technical assistance and resources. This project helped bind the faith community with the residents. It involved tearing down several burned-out houses that had been used for drug trafficking and prostitution. We created a labyrinth, a garden, and tree and flower nursery. Crime has been reduced. The alleys are cleaner and the stench is gone. The restoration of the vacant lot has had a major positive impact and is spreading to neighboring communities. People are asking for street trees and more gardens.”
Since 1996, Parks & People has funded more than 500 neighborhood greening projects. Seven community grant case studies can be viewed by clicking on the links below. You can also find “lessons learned” and applications for greening grants on the Parks & People Foundation website. (www.parksandpeople.org)
Funding for the Neighborhood Greening Grants Program also includes generous contributions from the TKF Foundation, Roswell Foundation, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Baltimore City Department of Planning’s Critical Area Management Program.

Application details for Parks & People Foundation’s Neighborhood Greening Grants which are provided twice a year can be found at Community Greening Stewardship Program page.

Kendrick said the city’s goal for the service was to have 75 boardings a day until it could supplement the service with a land-side shuttle, with the expectation that would grow to 150 once that service was in place.

But Kendrick said that even without the shuttle, the weekday water taxi is getting more than 150 boardings a day.

The city inaugurated the service in early May. Ridership figures provided by the contractor, Harbor Boating Inc., show that the service has regularly exceeded 800 boardings a week since late June.

One day in July, it reported an astonishing 327 boardings for the less-than-five-minute crossing between Fells Point and Tide Point.

Michael Dresser
Baltimore Sun

If you’ve ever been hiking at high altitudes you probably know how thin the air gets. This makes a lot of people sick. But how do birds do it, like say, the bar-headed goose, which flies up 30,000 feet when they soar over the Himalayans?

Scientists now think they know, according to a short item in the New York Times. There’s only about a quarter of the oxygen available that high compared with sea level. Yet, they flap and fly.

Turns out the birds’ muscle have adapted, according to an article in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences by a doctoral student at the University of British Columbia.

The muscle fibers are the same as other less high-flying geese. But the bar-headed geese have more capillaries around and within individual muscle cells and oxygen doesn’t have as far to travel to mitochondria, or cell membrane, which uses the oxygen to supply energy to the cell.

Just thought that was kind of interesting.

Since it’s green, I hope you don’t mind a plug for one of the projects from the organization I work for:

In honor of its 40th anniversary, Greater Homewood Community Corp., of which I am director of development, will strive to plant 40 trees in 40 north central Baltimore neighborhoods, for a total of 1,600 trees. These plantings will take place over the next year, with the help of residents, community groups, schools and businesses. Trees will be planted in city parks, on school grounds, on private property and along neighborhood streets.

If you would like to take part, such as volunteering to organize a tree planting in your park, school or neighborhood, contact Audrey Stevens at 410-261-4927 or astevens@greaterhomewood.org.

You can read more about GHCC and its other 40th anniversary celebration activities on the organization’s web site or blog.

Nissan Motor Co. has rolled out its new electric car in Japan, the Leaf, and expects to start selling the eco-friendly blue hatchback next year, with mass production beginning in 2012, according to this Associated Press story.

The car is meant to look like other cars on the road, rather than futuristic. It will sell for about $10,000 and go 100 miles on a charge.

The U.S. government gave Nissan $1.6 billion to retrofit its Tennessee plant to make the cars and the batteries. And other companies are working on their electric cars so they can tap into the market here for low and no emissions cars.

So, are we ready for full-on electric? Think service stations will start offering plugs?

In an effort to promote local watermelons, the state Department of Agriculture and the Mar-Del Watermelon Association are hosting a MAR-DELicious Watermelon event from 3 p.m.-6 p.m. Aug. 7 at Annapolis City Dock.

There will be free slices!

There will also be watermelon royalty: Maggie Bailey, National Watermelon Queen; Jessica Haden, Mar-Del Watermelon Queen; and Jessica Suddarth, Florida Watermelon Queen.  Other dignitaries will include Buddy Hance, the Maryland Secretary of Agriculture and Maryland and Delaware watermelon farmers.

If this isn’t enough, they’re handing out watermelon recipe cards, too.

More states are taking steps to protect the growing number of people who commute by bike on local roads, according to a story in USA Today.

States including Colorado and Louisiana now require a 3-foot buffer by cars. New Jersey’s House of Delegate has passed a similar measure, and Texas pass a buffer law, but the governor vetoed it. The city of Washington also has such a law.

Thirteen other state also have laws, according to the advocacy group 3FeetPlease.com.

The story says the number of bike commuters rose from about 483,145 in 2003 to about 664,859 in 2007, based on the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. That’s a 37.6 percent increase.

Could Maryland use such a law?

UPDATE: Deputy Mayor Andy Frank said that the city plans to address the issue of wind turbines on homes in the city in its comprehensive overhaul of the city’s old zoning laws.

He said: “There is a lesson here, which is that we need to update our zoning code to allow, under certain conditions, renewable energy devises. Mayor will ask Planning to consider this as part of Transform Baltimore.”

Baltimore’s zoning officials decided last night that they could not approve a wind turbine proposed by a Federal Hill woman because the four-decade-old city zoning code just doesn’t allow for it. The full story is here.

The effort by Marsha Vitow to be the first to install a wind turbine on her roof in the city spurred a lot of debate at City Hall. Officials seemed to really want to approve the turbine but felt hampered by the law. David Tanner, executive director of the zoning board, said the city will now have to pass legislation allowing turbines or include turbines as an exception in the overall zoning code, which is now being overhauled.

Mayor Dixon has pushed for a “cleaner, greener” Baltimore and could very well get a change done quickly. But how ever fast, it won’t be fast enough for Ms. Vitow, who said this was the end of the line for her. Her contractor, who spent a lot of time and money on plans for the safe installation of the turbine, may feel differently. He may be ready when the next resident and the city are ready.

It’s not clear who, if anyone, will step up. Patrice Davidson, a neighbor who opposed the turbine, said she thought it would happen in the not-so-distant future. She said she supports green energy and believes new, more appropriate technology will be developed and code will be corrected, and some people in the city will be able to invest in wind power. This unit, she feared, was too big and unsafe and unsightly.

The vertical access wind turbine had north-south panels that spin on a poll about 8 feet tall on a base. It would have been about 6 feet wide and 300 pounds. Green Solutions of Maryland, the contractor, said it would have been secure and it could have produced 20-40 percent of Ms. Vitow’s power because she’s close to the water, which sends a nice constant breeze.

Other cities have approved turbines, such as San Francisco and Boston. And there are some residential wind turbines on the Eastern Shore and Western Maryland. But among the more urban and suburban counties, Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties also continue to grapple with the same issue. We’ll see who works it out first. In the meantime, Maryland and federal officials offer tax breaks for those who can get approval.

Take note: dress shirts are recyclable. Self-described amateur sewer Brooke Reynolds (who is also a former Senior Art Director for Martha Stewart Living) made the above quilt for her son out of his father’s unwanted dress shirts. She integrated some dress shirt nuances by leaving “a pocket here, a placket there,” though the sweetest touch by far is Brooke’s cross-stitched “Love Mom” at the bottom. It simply made me smile.

It seems we still have a long way to go when it comes to bike safety. An experience rider was killed Tuesday when he was struck in Charles North by a truck turning in his path. The full story is here.

The wife of the man, John R. Yates, said he was equipped with lights, horns and mirrows, but the truck driver apparantly didn’t see him. An average of eight cyclists die every year in Maryland, according to the State Highway Administration.

The accident is increasing calls for new laws to regulate driver and cyclist behavior, driver education and infrastructure improvements. Bike advocates say that the legislature needs to approve a bill to require drivers leave three feet of space when passing a bike.

B’More Green had blog entry the other day about how other states were approving such a buffer.

Think telling people to leave three feet will help? Is this an education thing?