In June 2009, four of New York City’s most respected environmental organizations – New York Restoration Project (NYRP), Solar One, Sustainable South Bronx (SSBx) and Mount Sinai Center for Children’s Environmental Health – launched the NYC Green Stops Partnership, a citywide campaign aimed at connecting the city’s two million youth and their families with nature and New York City’s green spaces through outdoor events and an interactive, online campaign.
The Green Stops Partnership is one of 30 programs endorsed by the National Forum on Children and Nature, a group of public and private leaders that formed a nationwide effort in 2007 to reconnect kids with nature. The REI Foundation – a private foundation supported by the national outdoor gear and apparel retailer Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) – awarded NYRP, SSBX, Solar One and Mount Sinai a grant of $100,000 to launch this innovative program.
NYC Green Stops encourages youth and their families to take advantage of New York City’s kid-friendly parks, community gardens and outdoor events and programs – activities that stimulate play, foster learning, integrate technology, build leadership skills, instill a sense of ownership and showcase cultural diversity. The joint initiative also highlights the availability, accessibility and attractiveness of the city’s NYC Green Stops through an interactive web site and Green Stop-branded signage posted at parks and gardens throughout the city’s five boroughs.
Numerous studies have shown that spending time outdoors not only helps alleviate rapidly escalating childhood health issues, such as obesity and asthma, but may also contribute to improved science scores in the classroom. Therefore, NYC Green Stops targets children in most need, typically from low-income families living in New York City’s most under-served neighborhoods where there are no backyards, publicly-accessible green spaces are scare – or non-existent – and access to after-school programs is limited.
For its part in the Green Stops Partnership, NYRP is creating and implementing engaging educational programming that teaches children how to interact with and respect nature in their own neighborhoods. NYRP’s parks and gardens programs feature hands-on opportunities to dig in the soil and learn about the natural environment, reaching more than 10,000 children each year through our 55 New York City community gardens, events such as NYRP’s Little Red Lighthouse and Hudson River Festivals and NYRP’s NatureMania, Swindler Cove Family Day and Summer Camp programs. As a result of Green Stops, NYRP seeks to increase the hours children spend in nature, as well as help neighborhood residents restore and then sustain their local natural environments as a means to help revitalize struggling communities.