The Trust for Public Land in New Jersey THERE IS SO MUCH TO BE PROUD OF
in 2021
AND MORE TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN THE YEAR AHEAD
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PARTNERING WITH US IN NEW JERSEY! TPL STAFF
Cooper’s Poynt Elementary School Camden, NJ
As a Trust for Public Land supporter, you are contributing to healthy, equitable, resilient communities. Like you, we believe that green spaces are precious and that everyone deserves access to nature. In early 2020, when the pandemic first limited travel and inside gatherings, New Jersey residents turned to nearby open spaces, rediscovering the ease and stress-free joys of walking, camping, and picnicking—first solo, and then again with family. But this mass movement outdoors also exposed that not everyone has equal access to the outdoors. As our state recovers from COVID-19, equitable access to nature’s myriad benefits is more important than ever. Now is the time to champion the pivotal role of parks in addressing inequities, ensuring that nature’s healing power is available to all. The Trust for Public Land is committed to advancing equity, health, and climate resilience through nature in every community we serve. Since 1972, we have created more than 5,000 parks and green spaces, safeguarded more than
3.7 million acres, put a park within a 10-minute walk of home for more than 9 million people, and generated more than $85 billion in public funding for parks, trails, and open spaces. In New Jersey, we have created a park or natural area within a 10-minute walk of 284,000 people and counting. We are working with communities right now on exciting projects that stretch from Camden to the Jersey Shore and the Highlands. We are so thankful for your support. We are especially grateful for our High Point Society donors—we cannot wait to celebrate and honor your generosity at our next High Point Society reception and other special events throughout the year. Thank you for creating happier, healthier neighborhoods where all people can thrive!
CITY PARKS EDWIN GANO, MK W + ASSOCIATES, LLC
Dundee Island Park Passaic, NJ
Parks provide critical public benefits, from boosting health to strengthening social connections to helping communities adapt to climate change. Unfortunately, the pandemic has shown that in too many communities, access to the outdoors is considered a privilege when it should be a right. According to our analysis, parks in nonwhite communities are half the size and five times more crowded than parks in white neighborhoods. In response to the urgent need for green space, we are galvanizing local leadership to increase park access and improve outcomes in some of our state’s most under-resourced communities.
JESSE ALLEN PARK IN NEWARK We are in the final construction phase for Jesse Allen Park, one of the city’s most used recreational facilities. With funding from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Acres Program and the New York Jets, we will replace an overused football-soccer field and two baseball diamonds with three-season artificial turf. We anticipate completion in early 2022. The stormwater detention system installed under the new field will reduce flooding and harmful runoff to neighboring properties while relieving pressure on the city’s strained sewer system.
DUNDEE ISLAND PARK PHASE I & II IN PASSAIC We celebrated the completion of Phase I of Dundee Island Park with a public opening in late 2020. We continue to partner with Passaic County leadership, the City of Passaic, and community stakeholders to expand open space and recreation in the city. Together, we are developing design concepts for a park just north of Dundee Island Park that will link three parks using an old train right of way. The new park will feature vibrant playgrounds, recreational areas, and spaces for community gatherings. In addition, it will contain a multiuse trail, gathering area, and significant environmental features to protect the neighborhood from flooding. The final design will connect over 20 acres of green space along the Passaic River, including a pedestrian bridge that connects to Garfield’s River Walk on the other side of the river. Dundee Island Park Phase II will increase access to the recently completed park and the river, revitalize and bring new amenities to the unused park, support wildlife in the area, and add valuable green infrastructure to ensure riverfront resiliency.
COMMUNITY SCHOOLYARDS™ There is a schoolyard in nearly every neighborhood in New Jersey, yet, too few schoolyards are open to the public outside of school hours. Even fewer are designed with green space that students and communities need and deserve. By putting the community’s needs first and opening schoolyards to the public outside of learning hours, The Trust for Public Land is expanding access to green spaces in urban centers across the Garden State. In Newark, where diabetes and hypertension rates in some areas far exceed the state average, we are creating Community Schoolyards that provide healthy hubs for play and exercise. Renovated schoolyards at Lincoln Elementary School and Luis Muñoz Marín Elementary School will deliver the healing power of nature to more than 20,000 underserved city residents. Students, families, and neighbors produce the concept designs for these new green spaces in our signature participatory design process. Community-inspired art is another powerful feature of great parks and schoolyards. So in
TPL STAFF
Lincoln Elementary School Field Trip
The Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge Morris County, NJ
summer 2021, our friends at Yendor Arts and Newark Public Schools joined forces to create a vibrant, new mural at the playground at Sussex Avenue School in the Central Ward. The mural honors the artists and advocates who helped make this Community Schoolyard a reality and celebrates local culture and civic pride. In addition to the lack of green space, many Newark residents have limited access to affordable, fresh food. Building community gardens at public schools citywide—from Rider Farm at West Side High School to Lincoln Elementary School to Louise A. Spencer Elementary School—can help increase food security.
You can help!
Your support is crucial to the success of these efforts. Join us to raise $10 million to build Community Schoolyards across the state, from Paterson to Atlantic City.
STEWARDING PARKS TO BUILD COMMUNITY
The Trust for Public Land is lucky to have two park stewardship experts in Newark. Donna Kirkland, our senior director of community outreach, and New Jersey Advisory Board member Carla Robinson first met in 2011 through the Newark Environmental Commission. They continue their collaboration today. In addition to her role as a Trust for Public Land volunteer, Carla is the executive director of United Parks As One (UPAO), a citywide alliance of neighborhood-based park, playground, and garden groups dedicated to nurturing open spaces for residents. Mildred Helms Park, Jesse Allen Park, and Nat Turner Park friends groups came together to form UPAO as a vehicle to start a green movement in Newark. We partner with organizations like UPAO to assist with funding efforts to promote community cohesion and sponsor activities, events, and programs at the parks and gardens. Donna and Carla discuss challenges to park stewardship in Newark and how The Trust for Public Land and UPAO’s work shifted during the pandemic.
isn’t just about caring “forStewardship parks—it’s also about caring for the people who use them and the communities that surround them. – Carla Robinson,
”
executive director of United Parks As One
J. AVERY WHAM PHOTOGR APHY
Community involvement does not stop when park construction is complete. The Trust for Public Land supports neighborhood park stewardship efforts to strengthen Newark neighborhoods and inspire long-term vitality.
Nat Turner Park Newark, NJ
What are the biggest challenges park stewards face in under-resourced urban communities such as Newark? CARLA: This is a complex question. The real question is: Why are some communities “underresourced,” and how did they get that way? Although community members often do not use this language, they understand that current conditions in their communities are rooted in longstanding policies and practices that have ripped apart the fabric of the communities. Many of the people we work with do not identify as “park stewards.” They see themselves as people who care about their communities and are trying to make them better for the people who live there. Access to open space that is safe is only one of the many issues that community members must address. Community members tend to view their community-building efforts holistically and don’t separate their park work from economic justice, climate change, education, and voting rights work. They understand these interconnections.
DONNA: Resources, resources, resources. The lack of resources and support is one of the biggest challenges that hinders and slows the community’s pace towards a sustainable quality of life. Most community members endorse environmental justice principles because they live under the lens of so many injustices— environmental injustice being top of the list.
How did COVID-19 impact your stewardship efforts? CARLA: After the parks in Newark closed, we shifted gears and operated virtually. The UPAO Park Rangers Youth Summer Environmental Enrichment Program—which provides paid job training experience and mentorship to 25 Newark teenagers over six weeks each summer—was virtual in the summer of 2020 and in November 2020. UPAO started holding our monthly meetings virtually. We also simplified our Small Grants Program and offered funding to organizations meeting basic needs in the community and providing programming for children. DONNA: COVID had many impacts, not the least of which is the spotlight on longstanding injustices and inequities that affect health in communities of color. COVID also accelerated
the need for vital information in our communities. In response, we expanded the use of our community email list and bulletin board. We also developed more collaborative partnerships to expand our reach and share limited resources efficiently. COVID prevented in-person meetings and gatherings, but I’ve been able to attend many more meetings virtually, build new partnerships, and assist more community members, grassroots groups, nonprofits, and city agencies. During the COVID shutdown, Donna Kirkland was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Newark City Parks Foundation. The Foundation offers communitybuilding programs to bring people into their local neighborhood parks and green spaces.
How can each of us become better park stewards in our communities, in our everyday lives? CARLA: We can become better park stewards by doing whatever we’re able to do to ensure that everyone can access safe, appropriately programmed, and well-maintained open spaces. Stewardship isn’t just about caring for parks—it’s also about caring for the people who use them and the communities that surround them.
J. AVERY WHAM PHOTOGR APHY
Nat Turner Park Newark, NJ
LAND PROTECTION IN NEW JERSEY We know that public lands revitalize communities. When a community rallies to protect a beloved river, forest, coastline, or treasured landscape, we all gain. We protect land in order to ensure clean air and water, safeguard wildlife, enhance recreation, and improve climate resiliency and community health for all. Thanks to your support, we protected properties in the New Jersey Highlands and Pinelands regions this past year. We hope you will join us as we continue this work.
BOWLING GREEN MOUNTAIN In December 2020, we celebrated the expansion of one of Morris County’s most popular and largest parks when we conveyed the 96-acre Bowling Green Mountain property to Mahlon Dickerson Reservation. The park now offers over 3,500 acres of mountain biking, hiking, and camping fun.
Looking Ahead...
With Ocean County Natural Lands Trust Fund and others, we are preserving a nineacre property in Barnegat Bay to create new close-to-home open space and passive recreation opportunities for over 1,000 residents.
We also preserved priority habitat for the federally threatened Indiana bat and the stateendangered golden-winged warbler, bobcat, red-shouldered hawk, and the state-endangered timber rattlesnake.
BLUEBERRY ACRES
TPL STAFF
In fall 2021, we permanently protected Blueberry Acres, a 202-acre property filled with blueberry fields and wooded wetlands. This strategic acquisition in Burlington County adds to a greenbelt that will safeguard water quality for thousands of residents. It also links the 170-acre Evert Trail Preserve and the 37,000-acre Brendan T. Byrne State Forest. Now, visitors can stroll among the rows of blueberry bushes and snack on natural, tasty treats along the way. Birders and nature lovers will also enjoy the property, which provides habitat for the state-threatened barred owl, and red-headed woodpecker.
Donate today!
Help us raise $1 million to expand access to the great outdoors for everyone in New Jersey.
ENVIRONMENTAL FELLOWS LEADING THE NEXT GENERATION Faced with a need for more diversity in the environmental sector, The Trust for Public Land and the PSEG Institute for Sustainability Studies at Montclair State University established a fellowship program to mentor and train emerging professionals in conservation, park advocacy, and environmental protection. The Trust for Public Land now welcomes two cohorts of fellows per year. By inviting the first cohort of Board Fellows onto our New Jersey Advisory Board, these young professionals grow through leadership at the volunteer level. At the same time, we train two Environmental Fellows, providing them with the tools, experiences, and opportunities for advanced professional development. This program fosters the next generation of conservation and environmental leaders. With wage-based support for emerging leaders
from diverse racial and socio-economic backgrounds, these one-to-two year fellowships ensure equitable access to mentorship and hands-on training opportunities. We welcomed four fellows in the program’s inaugural year: Board Fellows Kristen Brennan and Emma Lavin and Environmental Fellows Christopher Snyder and Lauren Hope. They are partnering with our staff and Advisory Board members to: • Pilot a school-based community garden program to address food insecurity and childhood obesity through urban agriculture and improved nutrition. • Help raise The Trust for Public Land’s profile among young professionals and emerging environmentalists. • Engage the community and support our on-the-ground work.
FR ANCES M. ROBERTS
Mt. Vernon School Newark, NJ
New Jersey Advisory Board Leonard Berkowitz, retired Rose Cali, activist Jerry Flach, Valley National Bank William Gibson, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management Susan More, Atlantic Health Care Carlos Pomares, Essex County Board of County Commissioners Brian Quinn, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Carla Robinson, United Parks As One Ron Weston, Weston Architecture LLC
BOARD FELLOWS Kristen Brennan, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Emma Lavin, Believe in a Healthy Newark
High Point Society
Our work is made possible thanks to your high-impact philanthropic support. For more information about how we honor our most generous donors, contact Valerie Lynch.
JENNA STAMM
BACK COVER: BR AD HAMILTON • FRONT COVER: FR ANCES M. ROBERTS; J. AVERY WHAM PHOTOGR APHY; CHRISTIAN VALDEZ; ANTOINE SMITH/ADS PHOTOGR APHY; L AUR A BARISONZI
Thank you for helping improve the health, equity, and climate outcomes for communities in New Jersey and beyond. We couldn’t do this without you.
Join us Help ensure everyone has access to the outdoors. Every park we create, schoolyard we transform, trail we extend, and landscape we protect is thanks to supporters like you.
tpl.org/donate
Scott Dvorak New Jersey State Director 973.241.5259 | scott.dvorak@tpl.org Valerie Lynch New Jersey Director of Philanthropy 973.241.7421 | valerie.lynch@tpl.org 60 Park Place, Suite 901 Newark, New Jersey 07102