Community Greenspace Program
Earlier this year, residents in the Blake Street neighborhood, including members of the Fairlawn Manor Homebuyers Club, identified barren curb strips, dead trees and a lack of flowers as a problem in their neighborhood. NHS helped three resident leaders to apply for and earn an Urban Resources Initiative (URI) Greenspace Grant. 
The URI Community Greenspace Program provides trees, tools, and a coordinator to residents who are willing to supply the labor to get the job done. Through the summer, the Fairlawn Neighborhood Planters (as they have come to be called) organized regular planting sessions and grew their membership to about 20 residents. At the end of the summer, the Planters had planted 11 new trees, a large number of flowers and shrubs, and had managed to get the city to remove some of the dead trees. In September, NHS worked with URI to help the Planters organize a special planting as part of the United Way Days of Caring. The reunion resulted in the planting of eight additional new street trees along two blocks of Blake Street between Whalley Avenue and Osborne Street.
In addition to physical improvements, the project allowed a lot of residents to get to know each other, bringing renters, owners, landlords and even a few local merchants together to address a common goal. The group looks forward to strengthening this partnership in anticipation of continuing it next summer. In the meantime, neighbors are identifying new community projects and are pitching in to water the 19 new trees so they will survive the first frost.
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