Greening Homewood Clusters

Operation Better Block (OBB) is working on a Neighborhood Partnership Program (NPP) through the Department of Community and Economic Development, and Grounded Strategies partnered with OBB on the short-term implementation of greenspaces throughout Homewood. The Homewood Cluster Plan calls for the transformation of vacant lots in key locations to become greenscaped gateways to the community. Grounded has worked to identify potential locations for parklets from the Plan and implement a series of vacant lot projects on those locations.

As part of this process, Grounded Strategies has hosted Junior Green Corps training sessions that focused on the process of vacant land reclamation through the lens of civic stewardship activities, advancing community pride and building self-determination skills for youth. Training culminated with JGC putting their newly acquired skills into practice: transforming vacant lots into active greenspaces.