PHOTO: Love Your Block grants help fund community improvement work. Photo Courtesy of the Citizens Committee for New York City
If you truly love your block, here’s your chance to prove it.
Applications are now available for civic groups to take a shot at earning up $1,000 in grant money and the services of several city agencies to help improve their home base.
Love Your Block is an initiative of NYC Service in partnership with Citizens Committee for New York City that provides an opportunity for neighborhood groups to transform and improve their communities through local action while leveraging city services.
Resident-led volunteer groups receive a grant of up to $1,000 and services provided by the city departments of Parks and Recreation, Transportation, and Sanitation to spruce up their stomping grounds.
Additionally, groups receive project planning and community building assistance as well as support with media coverage for the project.
“Here in southern Queens and Rockaway we’re fortunate to have so many active and engaged individuals and civic organizations that do tremendous work for our community. The Love Your Block Grants are an excellent opportunity for these groups to continue their efforts and fund new projects to improve the neighborhood,” said Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder (D-Howard Beach). “I encourage everyone to consider applying.”
The latest round of grants comes just a couple of weeks before many neighborhoods in southern Queens and Rockaway mark the third anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. Goldfeder said he sees the grants as an opportunity for area organizations to continue work stemming from Sandy recovery efforts.
“In the aftermath of Sandy, we came together to recover from the storm, neighbor helping neighbor. This is the spirit that local groups have brought to our recovery efforts and what they can bring to the Love Your Block program,” Goldfeder noted.
The application is open to volunteer-led groups throughout the city. Groups can be small or newly-established and are not required to have non-profit or 501(c)(3) status. Applications can be submitted by visiting citizensnyc.org/grants/love-your-block or by calling Goldfeder’s office at (718) 945-9550. The deadline to apply is Nov. 6 by 11:59 p.m.
In 2013, Howard Beach’s Striving To Achieve and Reach Success organization earned a grant to help rebuild its youth center that was completely destroyed by Sandy. Last year, S.T.A.R.S. earned a Love Your Block grant to establish a vegetable garden on the vacant lot of a food pantry. “It is donating the vegetables to the food pantry for individuals in need who generally only have access to canned food full of preservatives. The new garden is also providing an opportunity for elders who do not have their own gardening spaces to grow food and socialize,” according to its application.
Also in 2013, the Queens West Kiwanis Foundation was awarded a grant to focus on the Sandy-ravaged communities of Broad Channel, Hamilton Beach, and Howard Beach to purchase “backpacks, notebooks, pencils and other items to benefit 400 children who lost school supplies, personal belongings, and homes in the storm.”
By Michael V. Cusenza
michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
