By Forum Staff
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. is set to host his third annual Queens Climate Expo this Saturday, Sept. 27 at the New York Hall of Science in Corona.
The expo will run from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and feature a number of interactive family-friendly activities, informative workshops, green workforce opportunities, giveaways, food and more. Representatives from numerous environmental advocacy organizations will also be on hand to connect directly with attendees about the resources and climate-related jobs they offer.
Some of the featured interactive activities at this Saturday’s expo include:
- Climate Ready, a workshop series hosted by the Queens Public Library, on the causes of climate change, its impacts on Queens families and how to prepare for climate-related emergencies like extreme heat, flooding and air pollution.
- A workshop on home energy efficiency and conservation, hosted by the New York Power Authority.
- A joint giveaway of hundreds of table-top composting kits courtesy of the Queens Botanical Garden (QBG) and the Queens Borough President’s Office, as well as free compost courtesy of QBG.
- A live insect display hosted by the Alley Pond Environmental Center.
To mark Climate Week NYC — which runs from Sunday, Sept. 21 to Sunday, Sept. 28 this year — and to promote the efforts across Queens to combat climate change, Richards first launched the Queens Climate Expo in September 2023.
The yearly event is one of many ongoing initiatives Richards has launched in the environmental space, considering Queens’ place on the frontlines of the fight against climate change and its history of being ground zero for devastating storms.
Each spring, the Queens Borough President’s Office issues an annual climate report created by Operation Urban Sustainability — the borough president’s working group of local environmental justice leaders and resiliency advocates that he established in 2022 — serving to guide Queens’ resiliency efforts.
The group released its third report in April 2025, highlighting strategies to address historic air and water pollution impacting numerous Queens neighborhoods among other initiatives around flood mitigation.
Additionally, Richards has allocated nearly $7.5 million across 35 different schools for the creation of hydroponics labs — including about $2.4 million across 11 schools in Fiscal Year 2026 alone — as well as $100,000 earlier in his first term to fund the planting of trees across neighborhoods that historically suffered from severe heat zone effects
“The remarkable progress we’ve made as a borough to safeguard our communities in the face of climate change is being sabotaged every day by a federal administration that believes it’s a hoax. But Queens can’t afford to go backward, so press forward is what we will do,” Richards said. “There is so much incredible work happening across Queens to make our borough a safer, stronger place to call home. I look forward to highlighting all of it at our annual Queens Climate Expo, and I encourage all our neighbors to come see that progress for themselves.”
All who wish to attend the annual Queens Climate Expo are asked to RSVP at www.queensbp.nyc.gov/rsvp.
