Community green spaces, like Staten Island’s Joe Holzka Community Garden, provide the surrounding neighborhood with cooler, cleaner air and help offset the heat island effect afflicting urban areas across the city. The community garden received a boost when over two dozen landscape contracting professionals and community volunteers came together as part of Project EverGreen’s GreenCare for Communities initiative to revitalize the space.
The $50,000 renovation included:
- A new paver walkway and patio.
- A gravel base and diamond grid.
- Laser measurements, staking, grading, leveling using skid-steer loaders and buckets.
- Excavating a new path connecting the two garden spaces and weaving through the existing garden to draw people into the community garden.
- Planting nearly 200 native perennials.
- Clearing brush from the fences.
The 17,000 square feet garden, named after lifelong Staten Island resident Joe Holzka, is a green oasis and gathering place for community members. Holzka is remembered for his work on the Staten Island Greenbelt and other public spaces, helping to create a living legacy of his commitment to municipal improvement.
“Project EverGreen has partnered with NYC Parks GreenThumb for 10 years to renovate community gardens across the city,” said Cindy Code, executive director of Project EverGreen. “It’s vital that residents have access to healthy parks and gardens to offset the negative effects of urban heat islands. Well maintained trees, plants and grass sequesters more carbon leading to the production of more clean air that everyone benefits from.”
The lead donor for the project was Con Edison with support from GreenThumb, the community gardening program of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Green industry volunteers and donors included Artisan Gardens, Angels Contractors, BCLS Landscape Services, Greengage Urbanscape, Landscape SEO, Mike Darling Construction, Plant Detectives, Twin Resources and Urture.
This is the ninth GreenCare for Communities project in New York City since 2014. Other projects included Liberty Island (2014), Neighbors of Vega Baja (2017), Clinton Community Garden (2018-19), Jackie Robinson Community Garden (2020), Carolina Community Garden (2020), Wishing Well Community Garden (2021), Bradhurst Community Garden (2022) and Poppa and Momma Jones Historical Garden (2023).
Parks, lawns, landscapes and maintained green spaces help decrease temperatures in communities and reduce energy use and cooling costs. Project EverGreen and its partners have renovated community parks and public green spaces totaling more than 200 million square feet of living green space since 2008. The initiative supports healthy green spaces in neighborhoods and cities and offsetting the negative effects of a warming environment.
