The Trust for Public Land in Action: 2020 C E L E B R AT I N G W HAT YO U M A D E P O S S I B L E IN NEW JERSEY AND BEYOND
Thank you so much for partnering with us in New Jersey! Close-to-home green spaces are vital to communities in today’s rapidly changing world. The coronavirus pandemic, its economic fallout, and the ongoing realities of systemic racism have created unprecedented hardships for everyone. We know that great parks and green spaces can transform communities from the ground up: they improve public health, advance economic opportunities and learning outcomes, and connect people to nature and to each other. We see firsthand how well-designed parks are more than a place to play; they change people’s lives. Our new strategic plan places community at the center of our powerful land-for-people work. The impact of our mission is not only the creation of great parks, public lands, trails, and green schoolyards; it’s also the strengthening
of the social and civic, personal and emotional connections upon which our communities depend while addressing the most pressing problems across the country—climate, health, and equity. Over the next five years, we aim to accelerate the transformative impact of our mission—impacting 300 communities with our work and improving the lives of 85 million people nationwide. We are rising to the challenges of this unprecedented moment to bring parks and green spaces where they’re needed most. In New Jersey, we’ve transformed an abandoned railway into a green riverside park, empowered Newark students to redesign their schoolyard remotely, and celebrated the Delaware River’s recognition by American Rivers as the 2020 River of the Year. With your help, we’re creating parks and green schoolyards and connecting people to trails and the outdoors all across the country. Thank you!
TPL STAFF
Bear Swamp Creek Cumberland County, NJ
Dundee Island Park After The Trust for Public Land completed the Newark Riverfront Park in 2013, our neighbors upriver in Passaic asked us to reimagine Dundee Island Park. The long-neglected public space was disconnected from the community by the remains of a historic railroad track. We are excited to share that this $12 million park project—the first in Passaic County in 50 years—will revitalize the riverfront while creating positive economic and environmental impacts on the underserved local community. With recommendations from the community following a year-long participatory design process in 2017, the park will feature flexible space for a farmers market, an amphitheater, a river walk with seating and picnic areas, a new soccer field, a playground and spray park, and a boat launch. Bioswales and native plant gardens will help to deter stormwater runoff. The community is thrilled to celebrate the reopening of this vibrant green space in autumn 2020.
The Trust for Public Land believes strongly in artistic and cultural representation, especially in parks and public spaces. At Dundee Island Park, we partnered with New Jersey artist Charlie Spademan to guide Passaic residents in a participatory public art process, creating a sculpture that celebrates the city’s industrial history and rebirth as a regional destination. An unused railway still separates the newlytransformed Dundee Island Park from the wellused Pulaski Park to the west. This year, we will work with residents and local officials on Phase II of the park to knit together a contiguous 30-acre park along the Passaic River, incorporating the unused railway. We will begin hosting virtual meetings in fall 2020 to gather community input and provide remote opportunities to engage those who would not usually attend in-person events. We are thrilled to advance this amazing project during a time of great challenges and opportunities for the Garden State.
TPL STAFF
Dundee Island Park Passaic, NJ
Green schoolyards At The Trust for Public Land, we believe everyone deserves access to a quality park and nature’s benefits. But sadly, 50 percent of urban-dwelling New Jersey residents don’t have access to a close-tohome park. In the densest state in the U.S., finding land to build new parks is nearly impossible.
R I D E R FA R M In fall 2019, we partnered with West Side High School and Newark Public Schools (NPS) to begin a historic transformation of the school’s property. The project was inspired by our work at Lincoln School in Newark’s Vailsburg neighborhood.
Our public schoolyards are packed with potential. The Trust for Public Land sees an affordable opportunity to expand park access for the Garden State’s 2,500 schools. Together, we can create nature-rich schoolyards that address climate, health, and educational inequalities.
West Side High School’s 641 students face many challenges; 55 percent qualify for free lunches, with many families living below the national poverty threshold. Anchored in a food desert, West Side High School families suffer from food insecurity, malnutrition, high obesity rates, and increasing diabetes incidences. With support from L.L.Bean, Oprah, and Ellen DeGeneres, we are addressing food insecurity in the community by incorporating a greenhouse into plans for the school’s new working farm.
Our revitalized playgrounds become gathering places where the community plays, socializes, exercises, and learns. By transforming asphalt lots into green schoolyards, we encourage playful learning and social growth while extending nature’s benefits to everyone, no matter their circumstances. We have already connected almost 97,000 residents to 13 renovated schoolyards in the state, with even more in the pipeline. Join us as we reimagine New Jersey public schoolyards to spark full-scale community transformations from the Palisades overlooking the Hudson River to the Cape May Peninsula. FRANCES M. ROBERTS
Jesse Allen Park Newark, NJ
Transforming the one-acre schoolyard into a working farm will provide fresh fruit and vegetables. It will allow the school to host culinary programs, markets, and family co-op shares. With newfound confidence and horticultural skills, students will develop their own food brands, such as “Rider Heat Hot Sauce” and “Rider Sweet Honey.” We are excited to lead the efforts to build a cutting-edge hydroponic greenhouse at Rider Farm. The greenhouse will contribute to the city’s first urban agriculture curriculum, allowing student agriculturalists to use a smaller footprint with up to 90 percent less water than traditional gardening methods. This exciting project will soon advance to the construction phase. Special funding for the Rider Farm hydroponic greenhouse was provided by the L.L.Bean Community Award—a five-year, $1 million partnership between The Trust for Public Land and L.L.Bean to create equitable access to parks.
Climate-Smart Cities™ – Newark & Camden Climate change is not an abstract concept. It is here and is being felt by all. The science is clear: increasingly severe storms, rising sea levels, killer heat waves, droughts, and public health hazards are all marked by the imprint of climate change. While everyone feels the impacts of climate change, it is often low-income communities and people of color that are hit first and hit hardest. For many in these communities, climate change is an environmental challenge stacked on top of a history of pollution, disinvestment, and discrimination. The Trust for Public Land’s Climate-Smart Cities program identifies innovative solutions to address climate change. This powerful program helps cities use parks and natural lands as green infrastructure to cool, connect, and protect people and communities while absorbing torrential rain and flooding. With data and community input, we bring these innovations to
the underserved neighborhoods and populations that are most at risk. In Camden, we are helping the city meet its green infrastructure goals while using equity, heat, and health data to reimagine a collective vision for the city’s future. Camden’s parks and open space plan is now being developed to expand opportunities for climate-smart parks in vulnerable communities, such as the newly-transformed Cooper’s Poynt Family School in North Camden. Other New Jersey communities deserve to have access to this revolutionary program. In the coming year, we plan to raise the funds needed to bring Climate-Smart Cities to Newark, where we have already transformed 13 green spaces since 1995. The annual rate of extreme heat in Newark is projected to multiply nine-fold by midcentury. Now is the time to take action. Join us as we bring climate-smart parks to Newark.
COLIN COOKE
Newark Riverfront Park Newark, NJ
Public land for public good DELAWARE RIVER HONORED Thrilling news! Our friends at American Rivers named the Delaware River the River of the Year for 2020. This award recognizes the iconic river for the tremendous progress in water quality, restoration, and community revitalization made by advocates and the conservation community. The Trust for Public Land is proud to have played a role in the river’s rebirth. We’ve protected hundreds of acres of land in more than a dozen locations across the 14,000-square-mile watershed. In New Jersey, we protected land in the watershed from the ridge and valley to the Pinelands, and most recently at Bear Swamp in the Rancocas Creek Watershed. We are currently partnering with the New Jersey Conservation Foundation and the Delaware River Watershed Initiative to protect Blueberry Acres in the South Branch of Rancocas Creek in Burlington County. Land protection is key to improving water quality across the basin as it stanches the flow of stormwater runoff and other pollutants.
VICTORY FOR PUBLIC LANDS After a herculean effort, the Great American Outdoors Act has been signed into law! This bipartisan-supported policy provides over $9.5 billion to fix the maintenance backlog at federal lands like national parks and forests. And it guarantees full funding—$900 million every year—for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), which drives investments in parks and open spaces across the country. Securing permanent, full, and dedicated funding for LWCF has been the top legislative priority for The Trust for Public Land for over 30 years. Since Congress created the program in the 1960s, LWCF funds have conserved eight million acres of open space and improved access to nature in nearly every county in America. Locally, LWCF has supported the New Jersey Highlands. LWCF, combined with the Highlands Conservation Act, made it possible to complete our largest Highlands protection project. The 800-acre Baker Firestone property was added to the Rockaway River Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Jefferson Township, Morris County in 2012.
MARK ZAKUTANSKY
Rockaway River WMA Jefferson Township, NJ
New Jersey Advisory Board We are so grateful for our volunteer leaders! Leonard Berkowitz Rose Cali Jim Gibson William Gibson Susan More
Carlos Pomares Brian Quinn Nick Silitch Ron Weston
NAOMI ELLENSON
Quitman School Community Playground Newark, NJ
JOIN THE HIGH POINT SOCIETY High-impact philanthropy builds programmatic capacity and enables our team to achieve greater impact for New Jersey’s most vulnerable communities as we develop climatesmart solutions with long-term economic, environmental, and public health benefits. Your commitment will be celebrated at the annual High Point Society reception in the spring, and you will be invited to join us for exclusive events and outings throughout the year. For more information about The Trust for Public Land’s New Jersey High Point Society, please contact Valerie Lynch, New Jersey State Director of Philanthropy, at valerie.lynch@tpl.org or 973.241.7421.
B U I L D I N G PA R T N E R S H I P S THROUGH STEWARDSHIP Newarkers supported their parks in 2020 by: • Celebrating the 36th National Night Out with residents, the Newark Police Department, and others to show how parks and open spaces support healthy neighborhoods and social cohesion • Honoring park friends groups and community activists at United Parks As One’s annual celebration dinner and awards ceremony • Partnering with Earth Matter to lead Newark youth on environmental field trips to Governor’s Island and the Pine Barrens • Creating a new mural at Sussex Avenue School with youth development group Arts Ed Newark and Yendor Arts
BRAD HAMILTON
Thank you
for joining us as we reimagine and realize the power of land for people to create stronger communities. We couldn’t do it without you.
Join us. The Trust for Public Land creates parks and protects land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come.
tpl.org
Scott Dvorak New Jersey State Director 973.241.5259 | scott.dvorak@tpl.org Valerie Lynch Director of Philanthropy, New Jersey 973.241.7421 | valerie.lynch@tpl.org 60 Park Place, Suite 901 Newark, New Jersey 07102
COVER (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT): COLIN COOKE, ALEXA GARBARINE, FRANCES M. ROBERTS, KATHY HAAKE, MARK ZAKUTANSKY.