Friendship Circle Rooftop Garden Programming In July and August 2016, we facilitated a gardening club with The Friendship Circle of Pittsburgh. The Friendship Circle is based in Squirrel Hill and works to unite children and young adults who have special needs with teen volunteers to grow and build friendships and enrich the lives of all who participate. Our COO, Evaine, had worked on the design for Friendship Circle’s new rooftop in partnership with Origin4Design as a member of a volunteer committee, and once it was…Read More
Bandi Schaum Trailhead The Bandi Schaum Trailhead is the one and only new project to occur during ReClaim South: Sustaining Momentum. As a Alternate Ambassador in the original cohort, Jamie Balser returned to ReClaim South: Sustaining Momentum in order to do a project of his own in South Side Park. This project is a labor of love for Jamie. The entrance to the Southside Park is highly underutilized and is a space that Jamie would love to see more active. One way to…Read More
Garden on Gearing The Garden on Gearing is a small community garden in the neighborhood of Beltzhoover. The garden was designed and created by Gordon Hodnett with the help of local community groups and neighbors. It contains several raised garden beds, an in-the-ground garden bed, a trellis system from growing berries, a community bulletin-board, and fruit trees. The garden is, and continues to be developed as, a place of inter-generational education centered around food. Partnerships with a number of community-based organizations, like Voices…Read More
Beloved Community Garden Cheryl was apart of the original cohort of 13 Ambassadors participating in the 2013-2014 ReClaim South program. As a civic leader and pastor in a food desert community, Cheryl knew she wanted to make a difference by beginning her own community food garden. In partnership with the church where she pastors, Cheryl set out to implement a thriving food garden, complete with a dozen planting beds and a play area for local kids.Read More
30/32 Grape Street Garden Linda Piso was one of the 13 original Ambassadors who participated in the 2013-2014 ReClaim South program. Linda, realizing that there were little to no fresh food options for residents living in her neighborhood, designed and implemented a community garden in partnership with her neighbor, the Carnegie Library.Read More
Let’s Talk! Let's Talk!, located at Mountain Avenue and Fisher Street, transformed a large vacant lot into an engaging and creative gathering space. The space contains a chess table, two sets of cornhole and a Little Free Library.Read More
Green Playces: Northside The first of 5 Green Playces, our Northside site is located on Columbia Place, just off of Brighton Road in the Central Northside, near adjacent neighborhoods California-Kirkbride and Perry South. The site, owned by Propel Schools, houses a stage, a couple of activity stations for environmental learning, an art wall, vertical planters, and more! Design Our kid-centered design process involved imaginative drawings of pool parties, winter boxes and “ninja gardens.” After this flurry of creativity, we honed in on the…Read More
St. Joseph’s Garden This site, located at the intersection of St. Joseph Street and Ormsby Street, is one of three gateways that provides a beautiful welcome to those entering the Hilltop. The site is planted with perennial wildflowers. John plans to expand the plantings in future years down the hill.Read More
Earth Day on the Avenues In Homestead there are more than 100 vacant lots and numerous other blighted properties, but also a blossoming main street, which is why it was an ideal location for a GTECH on the GO! event called Earth Day on the Avenues. Earth Day on the Avenues was a day of service and celebration of the Homestead community that happened on April 25, 2015. In the morning volunteers spent time along 8th Avenue cleaning the corridor and enhancing public green spaces…Read More
ReClaim the Route: Canstruction As a part of an annual partnership with the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon, GTECH and community partners work to activate one of the over 500 vacant lots along the marathon route. In 2015, GTECH partnered with FedEx Ground and Operation Better Block to activate and program a vacant lot along Frankstown Avenue. On April 24, 2015, 50 employees of FedEx Ground worked with GTECH to build out a garden for Operation Better Block’s Junior Green Corp. The garden is…Read More
Pittsburgh LocalData Collaborative In 2013, GTECH began testing new technologies as a way to streamline and standardize place-based data collection. We soon found that we weren’t alone on the hunt for open, standardized, up-to-date data. This led us to connect with other community development and environmental organizations, as well as academic and governmental institutions to form the Pittsburgh LocalData Collaborative (PLDC). The PLDC is a collaborative effort dedicated to making real-time decisions that improve our communities based on accurate and timely data that…Read More