PITTSBURGH, PA – The Office of Mayor William Peduto today announced that 19 organizations will receive funding for the ninth season of the City of Pittsburgh’s Love Your Block (LYB) grant program.
Through the Love Your Block revitalization program, the City of Pittsburgh and Peoples Gas award $1,000 grants to applicants that submitted a block improvement project plan. The award money is used to purchase supplies and tools necessary to implement a block improvement project. Awardees mobilize community volunteers to transform blighted lots into community assets. Additionally, a 20th award of $2,000 will be given to the organization that carries out the most successful block transformation, according to identified criteria. Project implementation will take place from April 1 to June 30, 2016.
“It is exciting to have a new Love Your Block season approaching – bringing together neighbors, community members, and volunteers to enhance our city,” said Mayor William Peduto. “I am proud of the way Pittsburghers rise to the occasion, turning blighted, vacant lots into beautiful community assets. These projects exhibit the best of what the City of Pittsburgh has to offer, an unmatched sense of pride with a passionate spirit of volunteerism.”
Love Your Block is made possible thanks to a generous donation of $25,000 by Peoples Natural Gas. The program is based on the Cities of Service Blueprint of the same name.
The Spring Hill Civic League was awarded the 2015 “Best Block Revitalization Project” and received an additional $2,000 for to further enhance the neighborhood gateway that was created as part of their initial project. “This project has taken an eyesore in a highly visible location,” said Ben Soltesz of the Spring Hill Civic League, “and made it beautiful with plants, trees, and a work of art.”
For more information, visit https://pittsburghpa.gov/servepgh/loveyourblock emaillex.janes@pittsburghpa.gov or call 412-255-4795.
SPRING 2016 GRANT RECIPIENTS
- Bible Center Church: Volunteers will enhance an existing community space by planting flowers, creating a children’s performance stage, and repairing a wooden fence.
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Bloomfield Development Corporation: Volunteers will create a litter awareness campaign, participate in a clean up day, and place cigarette butt receptacles at participating properties.
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Brightwood Civic Group: Volunteers will landscape a vacant lot and create a neighborhood gateway.
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Friendship Community Group: Volunteers will enhance a playground on school district property by landscaping, painting rusted metal equipment, and repairing a retaining wall.
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Garfield Community Action Team: Volunteers will install a rain garden and two rain barrels. as well as improve a small wooden sign, on a vacant side lot.
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Lincoln Lemington Community Consensus Group: Volunteers will clean up litter, plant a flower garden, and install a rain barrel on a City-owned lot.
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Mellon Street Neighbors: Volunteers will create a green space on a vacant lot.
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Monticello Street Hospitality House: Volunteers will clear an overgrown, vacant City-owned lot and install garden boxes.
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Morningside Area Community Council: Volunteers will repaint an iron fence, trim trees, and plant flowers along a neighborhood sidewalk.
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Mount Washington Community Development Corporation: Volunteers will construct raised planters, remove litter, and clear overgrowth in a City-owned playground..
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Northside Coalition for Fair Housing: Volunteers will plant flowers and clean up litter on two Northside properties.
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The Pittsburgh Project & The Outdoor Classroom: Volunteers will clean overgrowth and rebuild raised bed gardens on a City-owned lot.
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Page Street Conroy Garden: Volunteers will improve accessibility and expand the “living classroom” area of an existing community garden.
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Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall and Museum: Volunteers will landscape and clean up lawn and areas surrounding a Veterans Monument.
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South Oakland Neighborhood Group: Volunteers will plant flowers, remove weeds, and install both a bench and an art project in existing community space.
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South Pittsburgh Development Corporation: Volunteers will create a litter awareness campaign, participate in a clean up day, and place cigarette butt receptacles at participating properties.
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South Side Community Council: Volunteers will plant a perennial flower garden surrounded by a short fence, as well as perform general clean up, near the entrance of Ormsby Community Recreation Center.
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Stanton Heights Neighborhood Association: Volunteers will install rain gardens and paint stair rails on a vacant City-owned lot.
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Westside Community Organization: Volunteers will improve an existing flower garden on URA property.
About Cities of Service
Founded in September 2009 in New York City by former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and 16 other mayors from across the nation, Cities of Service is a bipartisan coalition of mayors committed to addressing critical city needs through impact volunteering. American cities face serious challenges and many mayors want to take advantage of every resource available to them – including the time and energy of public-spirited residents – to address those challenges. But in cities across America today, citizen service is often an underutilized or inefficiently utilized strategy by municipal governments. By leveraging citizen service strategies, Cities of Service helps mayors address local needs and make government more effective. To learn more, visit citiesofservice.org or follow @CitiesofService on Twitter.
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