Grants will provide investments to plant and maintain trees, reduce urban heat island effects, provide shade, clean the air, and create jobs.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
12/19/24
MEDIA CONTACT:
Edder Díaz Martínez
edderdiazmartinez@greenlatinos.org
WASHINGTON—Today, GreenLatinos announced $8.6 million in grants to enhance tree canopy and greenspace in communities throughout the nation. These grants are awarded through GreenLatinos Justicia y Equidad Fund (JyEF) to community-based organizations serving our frontline communities with support from the Urban and Community Forestry (UCF) Program of the USDA Forest Service. The JyEF provides resources primarily for small but mighty environmental, conservation, and climate justice frontline organizations and programs serving underserved and marginalized communities.
“This partnership is meaningful as it not only leads to increased tree planting and long-term maintenance of trees but also provides great benefits to local communities,” said Mark Magaña, Founder & CEO of GreenLatinos. “These grants will provide much-needed resources to underserved and underrepresented non-profit organizations that will lead to lowered heat island effects, cleaner air, and improved ecological impact on the health of our communities.”
Projects awarded funding will contribute to more than 14,500 trees being planted and maintained in Arizona, California, Illinois, New Mexico, and Puerto Rico. These projects will engage thousands of community members in tree planting and create workforce development programs that will boost technical skills for those community members.
The projects supported by the fifteen grants announced today will reach multiple generations, through work in school yards, supporting community gardens, and youth conservation corps style programs. “Partnerships with organizations like GreenLatinos are enabling the UCF program to do more good for more people across the country in communities big and small” said Nausheen Iqbal, Assistant Director (Acting) with the USDA Forest Service, Urban and Community Forestry Program. “Together we are bringing economic and environmental benefits to communities in rural and urban areas.”
Since 2022, the Justicia Y Equidad Fund has awarded 64 grants totaling almost $23 million through several initiatives.
“This program serves not only as a model intermediary fund, which pulls together significant resources from public and private entities to pass to community based organizations, but also as a model of how local participatory grantmaking can work. GreenLatinos brings together expert arborists and members directly from the communities we serve to score proposals from their vast community expertise and compensates these community leaders,” said Joe Toolan, Justicia Y Equidad Fund Manager for GreenLatinos. “This slate of awards represents the needs of our communities and will leverage the knowledge of our cultures in the solutions to the climate crisis.”
A complete list of the grants made through the Justicia Y Equidad Fund “Trees in Your Community” Program is available here.
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About GreenLatinos
GreenLatinos is an active comunidad of Latino/a/x leaders, emboldened by the power and wisdom of our culture, united to demand equity and dismantle racism. We are resourced to win our environmental, conservation, and climate justice battles, and driven to secure our political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation. GreenLatinos is an equal opportunity provider. Learn more at https://www.greenlatinos.org/.
About the USDA Forest Service
Established in 1905, the Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is the nation’s foremost federal forestry organization. The agency is a world leader in forest research, providing leadership in the sustainable management, conservation, use, and stewardship of our nation’s forests. Dedicated Forest Service employees manage the National Forest System, which consists of 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands covering 193 million acres in 43 states, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Learn more at https://www.fs.usda.gov/.
About the Urban and Community Forestry Program
The Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry Program (UCF) is the only Federal program dedicated to growing and maintaining urban trees, forests, and green spaces. Authorized under the Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978, the UCF program assists States and partner organizations in applying nature-based solutions to chronic and emergent economic, social, and environmental challenges. Learn more at https://www.fs.usda.gov/managing-land/urban-forests/ucf.