Celebrating a Green Team Summer
Happy fall to all our loyal newsletter readers! As you’re preparing to break out your sweaters and your favorite soup bowls, let me take you back to the brighter days of summer and celebrate all the good work our Green Team accomplished in just a few short months.
This summer, Groundwork Erie employed and educated 24 Green Team youth for 10 weeks of environmental work. The larger Green Team had 5 work crews, each with a specialized focus:
Neighborhood Beautification
Urban Forestry
Farm to School
Green Infrastructure
4th Street Farm
Both Green Teamers and mentors worked tirelessly throughout the summer (not without dance breaks and foot-races, of course) on a wide-ranging array of projects.
I’m sure you’re on the edge of your seat, just waiting to hear the end-of-summer stats we’ve pulled together… don’t fret, keep reading :)
Neighborhood Beautification Team
The Neighborhood Beautification team, mentored by Miss Andrea, went out across downtown Erie to, in her words, “care for Groundwork’s immediate neighborhood through both work and presence.” Her five Green Teamers, Diego, Ethan, Aria, Keshaun, and Mohammed, were definitely a presence - strutting across town in their bright Green Team shirts and safety vests, wielding weed-whackers and trash grabbers. The group of five went out each day to mow lawns, pick up trash, and whatever else had to be done to make our city a little more beautiful.
Aria described her tasks this summer as a way to “make the environment greener - especially abandoned lots like overgrown ones with recently wrecked buildings, trash-ridden yards, and more.” The importance of green spaces in our urban areas was a frequent topic of conversation this summer, and we’re so grateful that this team put in the work to amplify Erie’s green! This summer alone, this team accomplished the following:
Cared for over 7 acres of land
Picked up 100+ pounds of trash
Disposed of 45 tires and 50 TV screens
Removed multiple couches and mattresses from vacant lots
Filled a 30 yard and 15 yard dumpster with the Love Your Block program!
Everyone offer a round of applause to our dedicated Neighborhood Beautification Team!
Urban Forestry Team
The Urban Forestry team focused on trees in our city spaces. They worked on LEAF’s Tiny Forest Initiatives to care for approximately 700 trees that have been planted in East Erie. The work that this team did each day involved watering baby trees with gator bags, weeding invasive species out from under these trees, pruning older trees to help them grow stronger, removing dead trees, and installing fences around the forests to keep critters and pests at bay.
Miss Hannah, Urban Forestry team’s mentor, hopes her team “can now recount the value of trees in Erie’s urban forest.” When her team, Braeden, Nurta, Elaudia, Mason, and Yvonne, reflected on their summer, it became clear that Miss Hannah’s hopes were fulfilled. Nurta even urged others to know the value of trees when she wrote:
“Making the city green again matters…because our city matters and you should help us show it.”
Thank you to our hard-working Urban Forestry Team!
Farm To School Team
The Farm to School team had four members: Ja’Siyah, Annabelle, Samish, and Ella. Led by Mx. Camille, this team would travel to 3 different school gardens. Between singing and dancing each day, they would harvest produce, water the plants, weed out invasive species, and maintain and beautify the gardens. Ella says “farm to school is about more than food, it's about building healthy habits for life.”
Mx. Camille echoed this sentiment when they said their team built “hands-on gardening skills,” and worked to “engage the community about food justice and accessibility.” Food sovereignty was one of the Green Team’s learning points this summer. The teens heard how it should be people’s right to sustainably sourced, healthy foods, and that food access should first come from local urban growers and farmers. The Farm to School team often brought their harvest to the PWYC markets, and got to see first-hand how the work they did impacts the new local food system we are trying to create in our city of Erie.
Overall, this team harvested 150 lbs of produce from their school gardens!
We give many thanks to this team for not only their work and their produce, but also bringing their liveliness and fun attitude to the rest of the Green Team!
Green Infrastructure Team
Miss Grace mentored the Green Infrastructure team: Adil, Iftikhar, Sayed, and Abdul. Their focus was bringing more biodiversity to the city of Erie through native plant installation, clearing out invasive species, and picking up trash along the way to help plants and other creatures thrive.
Over the summer, Miss Grace and her team picked up 150 pounds of trash and 60 pounds of recycling!
She described their work this summer as “an opportunity to directly impact the creatures (including humans) within our community by creating and supporting beautiful biodiversity in our habitats.”
This team did have a direct impact on 3 different lower eastside sites. They spent days at each site removing invasive species, laying weed fabric to prevent their regrowth, mulching, and concocting seed bombs to throw into the ground - creating the space for native plants to rise up through the soil. Some sites even had trees planted, adding to our Groundwork Erie goal of increasing our urban canopy. The Green Team came to learn this summer that trees act as nature’s air conditioner and drastically reduce heat with their shade. Increasing the tree coverage in our city would mean everyone stays cooler in the rising heat of the summer months.
Miss Grace and a new Green Team will continue this work throughout the fall. They will be planting over 200 trees in areas that need the most canopy coverage. To both our summer and fall Green Infrastructure Teams, great job adding biodiversity and canopy coverage to our urban spaces!
4th St Farm Team
The 4th Street Farm team - Eleftheria, Pelagy, Nadia, Jazmin, and Daniel - were led by Miss Kristen. These six hard-workers were out on the farm each day. Here, you see a picture of them planning the layout of the farm.
The Green Teamers planned for a variety of food and flowers: onions, peas, tomatoes of all kinds, marigolds, tomatillos, zucchini, summer squash, mexicana zucchini, assorted variety of beans, potatoes, different types of eggplant, okra, cotton, zinnias, sunflowers, collard greens, mustard greens, so many herbs, and more! After days of planting, watering, scuffling weeds, and even singing to these plants…
…this team harvested a total of 1,254 lbs of produce!
This team didn’t just stop at harvesting. They worked each Friday at the Pay What You Can (PWYC) Market held right on our farm to share the produce they grew with the neighbors in our community. Each teen pulled their weight to unload produce from the cooler into the car, just to drive the three minutes down the road and unload it all again at the farm! Setting up and running the market became entirely the Green Teamers responsibility, and they thrived! The five teens would rotate between market tasks - tallying the number of neighbors we share with, weighing bags of produce, collecting money, and restocking the table. They even began assembling flower bouquets and bagging them in water for those neighbors who wanted a little something pretty with their food. During July and August…
…we welcomed 302 people to the 4th Street Market and distributed 1,697 lbs of produce.
This team voiced their most valued lesson from this summer when they said, “all are welcomed.” This community farm was started as an effort to grow our city’s food sovereignty and spark social change from a place of love and care. It’s clear that these five teenagers really stepped into the spirit of love and care when harvesting food, working the markets, and sharing our produce with neighbors and Emmaus Ministries Soup Kitchen. Thanks 4th St Farm Team for all your hard work this summer!
Summer Field Trips
Green Team also took 3 field trips this summer to continue their learning!
They first went to Asbury Woods and augmented their knowledge of trees, canopy cover, and biodiversity. We spent the morning discussing tree rings and what they tell us about a tree’s life story. Asbury then took us on a guided hike throughout the woods to see a mix of young and old forests coming together.
Our next field trip took the Green Team to Headwaters Park where we talked through water quality and the importance of watersheds, followed by a hands-on learning experience. The teens got to explore and wade through “the tube”, taking samples and testing water quality.
The final field trip Green Team took this summer had us boating across the bay on the Presque Isle Water Taxi. When we arrived at Presque Isle State Park, the teens and mentors had a day of fun and relaxation on kayaks and canoes. It was a perfect way to end the summer.
Check out our impact throughout the whole city!
