The City of Richmond is celebrating Earth Day by throwing a party — specifically, one that kicks off its Cool the City campaign.
Cool the City is a five-year greening and capacity building project, funded by a $6 million grant from the US Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. It’s based on years of planning, outreach and research on the part of the city and partner organizations.
You can plant a lot of trees with millions of dollars — and that’s part of the plan. But there’s more to it.
“I think that people see a lot of tree work happening but they don’t understand why, and so it’s our job to help to explain that work to those that don’t understand or know the benefits of trees,” said Southside ReLeaf Co-founder Amy Wentz.
Southside ReLeaf is one of four nonprofits helping the city put the grant money to use, alongside Groundwork RVA, Happily Natural Day, and Virginia Interfaith, Power and Light.
One of the project’s goals is to get more people involved in greening the city; Southside ReLeaf will host informational sessions and workdays where people can learn about how trees can improve health outcomes.
Groundwork RVA is helping to build a workforce to keep Richmond green in the long term. It’s offering all-age training programs that involve maintaining greenspaces, community gardens and other facilities like Groundwork’s bike shop.
Happily Natural Day is building more agriculture into the landscape, with community gardens at several locations around the city. And organizer Glenn Allen Pannell said VAIPL is helping with outreach to Richmond’s faith communities.
Pannell said his main goal is to find “the long-standing connection points” through this work.
“When we start something like a garden or a tree planting, we will educate those people,” Pannell told VPM News, “and then they will continue on the work.”
That might look like helping out in a church garden — building a cistern or raised beds, for instance — to give people more tools to work with when they try to make a difference in their communities.
The city’s work is largely based on the RVAGreen 2050 planning process, as well as its urban forest master plan. There are lots of reasons to like trees and greenspaces in urban areas: They reduce the impacts of urban heat island effect and urban flooding, slow the flow of pollutants into waterways like the James River, and tend to make people happier and healthier.
Research shows that the parts of Richmond with relatively few trees often overlap with areas historically passed over for investment by governments and private companies.
The city’s Office of Sustainability, Department of Public Works and Department of Parks & Recreation are coordinating the project.
Cool the City is technically already underway — the city says it’s planted at least 173 trees so far — but it officially kicks off on Earth Day (April 22) from 4–6 p.m. at Broad Rock Sports Complex, 4835 Old Warwick Road, in Southside.
