Greenroots

Waterfront initiative: Greenroots engages dozens of residents in a grassroots effort to revitalize the chelsea creek waterfront. Through this work, we mobilized widespread community engagement in the opposition to the east boston substation; partnered with the boston waterfront partners to bring equity to boston's waterfront; engaged in development discussions regarding key parcels of land in east boston and chelsea; and engaged community members in revitalizing, creating public access to; and being engaged in the redesign of key parcels of land along the chelsea creek and adjacent waterbodies. We also organized weekly caminatas verdes walking groups with east boston residents. Food justice: Greenroots addresses food justice, health disparities and environmental injustice through our food justice and urban agriculture initiatives. Greenroots manages six urban growing spaces (chelsea community garden, mace community garden, marlborough st. garden, suffolk street garden, anita's place and the urban farm) to addres food insecurity issues in chelsea. Our urban growing spaces not only provide fresh food, but also engage and empower food-insecure residents. This year, we constructed a teaching kitchen to connect to the urban growing spaces through an urban ""farm to table"" concept where we will be promoting greater nutrition, health, wellness and social connectivity. We will complement these growing spaces with a container freight farm in summer 2024. Climate justice / air quality / energy democracy: Greenroots works to address climate impacts including heat island effect, flooding and sea level rise throughout chelsea and east boston. Our work also focuses on climate related health impacts including poor air quality and increase respiratory incidents. Our campaigns include the cool block initiative to implement resident-led solutions to heat island effects; working with c- heat partners to understand residents' perceptions of heat waves personnally and throughout the community; advancing indoor and outdoor air quality monitoring and working to share data broadly and accessibly; and proposing new sources of renewable, resilient energy including a community-owned microgrid, solar panels, energy efficiency programs, community choice energy and more.