On the QT | The Official Newsletter of GWA June - July 2017 | Page 16

GWA Foundation Hits the Road
with Gro1000 Events
BY ALEXA HALLER
More than 50 Santa Monica youth and volunteers worked with representatives of GWAF, KidsGardening.org
and Franklin Park Conservatory to learn about gardening and other green activities.
Gro1000
GWAF, the United States Conference of Mayors and Franklin Park Conservatory are partners
with Scotts Miracle-Gro in support of Gro1000. Starting in 2011 and through the company’s
150th anniversary in 2018, it is supporting the creation of more than 1,000 community gardens
and green spaces in the markets we serve. The partnership helps neighborhoods in need of
green spaces, schools in need of places to play and communities in need of beautification and
revitalization.
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GWAF and Grow1000 aided in development of
Abolition Row Park in Bedford, Massachusetts,
May 12. The greenspace is being designed to
revitalize vacant property. The park will focus on
local history, as well as using greenspace as an
outdoor classroom. The area will aid in the creation
of the Monarch Butterfly Pollination Highway
within the park.
Representatives of GWAF traveled to Santa
Monica, California, April 24, for the first of four
Gro1000 trips. The site was Ishihara Park and
the Gro1000 project transformed land formerly
used as a parking lot into a welcoming com-
munity greenspace with native plantings, an
urban orchard, a learning garden and passive
green areas for residents to gather, exercise
and experience nature in an urban setting.
Fresh produce grown in the learning garden
will be donated to local food services.
On May 12, foundation representatives went
to New Bedford, Massachusetts, to work in
Abolition Row Park, a community greenspace
designed to revitalize vacant property. The
property faces the Nathan and Mary John-
son House and the Friends Meeting House,
both properties on the National Register of
Historic Places. This park will focus on all the
local history, as well as using greenspace as
an outdoor classroom. The area will aid in the
creation of the Monarch Butterfly Pollination
Highway within the park.
GWAF went to Rochester Hills, Michigan,
May 18, in support of the installation of a
sensory garden in Riverbend Park. The 5,000
square-foot garden will have two areas – a
student-designed and maintained space, and
a professionally designed sensory garden. The
garden will include areas specifically devoted
to local schools, providing students the oppor-
tunity to learn the elements of ecology such
as native plants, soil erosion and pollination.
The natural elements playground immediately
adjacent to the garden will be designed with
sensitivity to children with special needs.
On June 10, officials gathered at Cherry Ann
Park in New Haven, Connecticut, to celebrate
the park, participate in a community planting
and other activities.