Our organization believes in a holistic approach to health for our students. This includes community service learning and ensuring that our students are involved not only in bettering themselves but bettering the communities they live in and enhancing community unity. Our project involves students working at our community gardens in New York City and collaborating with other community groups and civic groups to beautify their neighborhoods and to increase collaboration with other members of the community. We have a new garden in the Skyline Playground in Staten Island and this is an example of a garden we will utilize to help the students grow vegetables, interact with the community and beautify the neighborhood. We will incorporate groups such as the NYPD, various youth community groups and neighborhood advocates to achieve these goals.
– Organize groups of young people to volunteer in designated community gardens
– Coordinate with various community groups to collaborate on projects
– Organize specific groups for community service learning
The project addresses both community challenges of bringing various groups together (for example youth with police officers; older people with young people) as well as sustainable community gardening.