Landscaping With Cornell Cooperative Extension

Landscaping With Cornell Cooperative Extension

Greentopia has been working in partnership with Cornell Cooperative Extension to run our Introduction to Landscape Technicians Certification program. This certification program has been so important to helping our participants gain a better understanding of horticulture, environmental issues, and landscaping basics. This gives our participants skills, knowledge and a certification to help them find empowerment in the workplace and to gain meaningful employment in green industries. We are so thankful to Cornell Cooperative Extension for their continued work with our program.

Cornell Cooperative Extension also has other amazing educational programs that you can partner with. To learn more about Cornell Cooperative Extension and their work click the button below!

200 Years of the Rochester Female Charitable Society

200 Years of the Rochester Female Charitable Society

Our partners at the Rochester Female Charitable society have just celebrated their 200 year anniversary of serving the Rochester community.

On February 26th 1822, 60 women came together to create the Rochester Female Charitable society. This society helped to found the first schools, public projects and social services in the community. This was the beginning of women’s civic activism in Rochester, at a time when the city was only a settlement of around 2,700 people.

We are proud to be one of the many organizations that the Rochester Female Charitable society supports in the Rochester Community. This organization has been dedicated to supporting women and the Rochester community as a whole, helping to further futures. Thank you so much for your continued support as we try to build a better Rochester together.

Community Design Center Redesigning Rochester Awards

Greentopia was honored at the 12th annual Community Design Center Redesigning Rochester Awards. Our organization received the Director’s Award for our dedicated work in High Falls and the State Park project. 

We are honored to be recognized among our fellow award recipients, who are just as dedicated to making Rochester a better city for all, and excited to see such unique projects. 

We are so excited to see High Falls become a green space for the Rochester community to enjoy. Greentopia remains dedicated to creating these spaces for our community. Check out the video to learn more about Greentopia’s hopes for High Falls.

Yoga on the Bridge

Yoga on the Bridge

This past month we hosted our first Yoga on the Bridge. In partnership with Breathe Yoga, Green Visions hosted a silent disco power vinyasa yoga class on the Pont De Rennes Bridge. Thankfully this year, we were lucky enough to get a beautiful sunny day for the event.

A huge thank you to Breathe Yoga Studios for leading such a beautiful class, we are so appreciative of your partnership, support, and your continued work with us.

Also, thank you to WildByrd Productions for the use of silent disco headphones for the event.

Greentopia strives to make High Falls a center for recreation for all Rochester citizens. Events like Yoga on the Bridge allow us to showcase the natural wonder that can be found in the heart of Rochester. We are so grateful to everyone who came out to support the event, thank you so much for coming out and joining us in High Falls. We hope to see you visiting again soon.

Yoga on the Bridge will be returning next year!

If you are interested in how you can get involved in events like these, sign up for our volunteer list to stay informed on the latest happenings in High Falls.

Green Visions 10 Year Anniversary

Green Visions 10 Year Anniversary

On October 17th Green Visions celebrated the completion of our 10th year! We were joined by neighbors, former participants, funders, friends, and even Mayor Malik Evans.

The occasion also marked the groundbreaking of the remodel of 188 Whitney to create the Green Visions Training and Education Center. This remodel will allow Green Visions to expand in many ways. First, we will have a home base in the heart of JOSANA, dedicated to workforce development training and assistance to the community, along with environmental education.

Second, this new space will allow Green Visions to expand its programming into the winter months. This new program will allow us to double the youths we serve each year.

Our final cause to celebrate was the installation of a new sculpture on the 188 Green Visions Campus. The “Symbol”, created from metal by Gareth Fitzgerald Barry, is intended to be an onsite representation of the Green Visions Workforce Development Program. The sculpture is an iconic manifestation composed of 22 parts, unified as a single, undulating but unbroken line flowing through space, finally forming the Green Visions logo. The 22 sections of the sculpture represent each week of the program for every participant, while the unification of these sections to form ‘The Symbol’ represents the successful completion of the program and the many stops along every person’s individual journey with Green Visions.

Being an outdoor sculpture, ‘The Symbol’ stands 10 feet tall and will be subject to the elements. It will patina and age with distinction. Its shadow will further serve to showcase the Green Visions logo on the very land on which program participants work and grow, providing an interactive sundial.

‘The Symbol’ will stand out among the surrounding foliage without overshadowing adjacent program amenities, such as the Green Visions House and Outdoor Classroom. Positioned towards the corner of the lot, ‘The Symbol’ will become incorporated into the landscape and skyline of the program site.

More of Gareth Fitzgerald Barry’s work can be found on his Instagram @garethfitzgeraldbarry.

Our HydroStation and ROC the Riverway Initiative

With funding and guidance from the City of Rochester and ROC the Riverway, Hunt Engineering is close to completing the study of the Hydro Station’s structural integrity.  Drones were used to glimpse inside. Repellers jumped off the edge to look at the outside. A boat was launched to look underneath. 

Sensors were placed to measure vibration on top. Data is being compiled, and will be presented to the newly formed High Falls Overlook Advisory Committee that will meet before the end of the year. Community members on the Advisory Committee will be helping to inform next steps to take in the development of the building. 

Representatives on the committee include the Genesee Brewery, Greentopia, Genesee River Alliance, Pike Company, RG&E, Visit Rochester, Ibero American Development Corporation, and the High Falls Business Improvement District.

Please take a moment to read this update and support our Annual Campaign.  Every dollar counts towards helping Greentopia continue its exciting work and brings us closer to a more vibrant, sustainable and equitable community.

Step aside Netflix series. Green Visions has “14 Stories.”

Step aside Netflix series. Green Visions has “14 Stories.”

Trigger warning: you can’t watch Greentopia’s “14 Stories” without your heart being touched. This binge-worthy series of short films, posted on our website, profiles the young people who worked in the Green Visions program in 2016.

There’s the young mother who didn’t know what it was like to hang out with other teenagers because she had a baby at 13 and dropped out of school. And the young father of two who finds working with flowers at Green Visions an oasis of peace in his life.  Gardening can be hot, dirty, hard work. But it is also a lifeline of job skills and resume building for youth 18 to 22 living in a city neighborhood suffering from crushing poverty.

“These kids are in situations or circumstances in their lives because of the challenges they face,” said filmmaker Doug Buckley, of Blackbird Son Video Production, who created the “14 Stories” series. “That consumes them, I think.” A job with Green Visions exposes the young workers to life beyond a small radius within Rochester’s northeast side. Green Visions also helps the workers find new ways of dealing with life. “They’re used to conflict – and I know because they said it — that’s their first instinct is to react as if they’re in a conflict,” Buckley said. Side benefits of the program are that flower cultivation is making the soil healthier and the neighborhood more beautiful. Green Visions workers plant, raise and harvest the flowers, which are sold in stores such as Wegmans, Hart’s Local Grocers and the Rochester Public Market.

Seven of the “14 Stories” films are online now, and seven others are due to be uploaded later this spring. Watch and share, please. If you’re so moved, please support these young people or others like them by sponsoring a youth in the Green Visions program. There’s no other job development program like Green Visions in Rochester, providing 20 or more weeks of employment and training, including federal job safety certification.  Watch “14 Stories” and you’ll see that it’s no small achievement for young people in the JOSANA neighborhood to complete the program while dealing with all the survival issues they face.

The stories take you into the hearts and, in one case, the home of the Green Visions workers.  Buckley captured the sometimes bleak facts of their lives as well as their blossoming hopes. “I was really humbled by the fact that they would tell me those things, and tell me how they felt about those events in their lives,” he said.

For example, Tarin, who dropped out of high school in 10th grade, now hopes to go to college to study performing arts. “I can finally feel like I’m involved in something,” he says on camera.

Then there’s Anthony, who goes by the nickname of “Magic.” He shares, “Green Visions keeps me out of a lot of stuff. When I come to work, I get a lot of negative things off my mind.”

And there’s Breanna, who was living in a homeless shelter when she first started with the program. “I didn’t really feel like I had a family until I came to Green Visions,” she says. Now she talks about wanting to own a house and her own business.

We dare you not to be moved.

Start your day with ideas for a greener city

Start your day with ideas for a greener city

SEATING IS LIMITED, so RSVP to reserve your seat today!

Greentopia is bringing to town an international consultant who works with cities on becoming more green – from reducing greenhouse gases to avoiding transportation logjams. Shannon Bouton, chief operating officer in Detroit for the

Shannon N BoutonShannon Bouton, chief operating officer in Detroit for the McKinsey Center for Business & Environment, will speak Feb. 28 in our Green Leadership Series, sponsored by Rochester Gas & Electric. Her local appearance will be at 8 a.m. at Oak Hill Country Club, 145 Kilbourn Road. Admission is free but registrations are required and a $10 donation is suggested to help defray costs of the event, which includes a continental breakfast.

Bouton’s talk is titled “Building the Cities of the Future with Green Districts,” a subject she’s explored on more than one continent. Trained as a field biologist, Bouton co-wrote the McKinsey publications How to Make a City Great and Urban Mobility at a Tipping Point. She has advised city and state governments, non-profit organizations and public utilities on subjects including energy efficiency and program design, reduction of greenhouse gasses, and sustainability.

These are ideas that we here at Greentopia grapple with all the time in our work to make Rochester more vibrantly sustainable. “We’re starting the conversation in a sort of leadership way about how Rochester can take advantage of these things and rebuild the city,” said Greentopia Co-founder Michael A. Philipson. Bouton’s talk is the second in the Green Leadership Series. The first event featured green initiatives at Monroe Community College, RG&E and  the Genesee Brewery.

Don’t miss this opportunity to be in on the conversion about green ideas that could help Rochester thrive. You can RSVP

SEATING IS LIMITED, so RSVP to reserve your seat today!

The perfect gift for you and us

The perfect gift for you and us

Need a gift but you don’t know his size? Or don’t know what to give the person who already has everything she needs? Consider a tribute plaque in Greentopia’s FlourGarden. For as little as $100 for a single name, we can have your loved one’s name etched on a space in the FlourGarden’s Donor Recognition Wall. For $250, you can have two lines of poetry inscribed or create a memorial or commemorative dedication. Or just go whole hog and dedicate an entire section of the garden for $25,000. We’ll accommodate all budget sizes!

These laser-etched metal plaques will be attached to railings along the FlourGarden on Browns Race in the High Falls District. (Gifts of $25,000 or more get their own free-standing signs in the garden.) Besides honoring a loved one, you’ll be supporting our mission of creating vibrant public realms in sustainable, environmentally sensitive ways. And you get a tax deduction to boot!

Visit this page to find out more and to access our on-line order form. And happy giving.

 

Three cheers for Tiani Jennings, our Green Visions site manager!

Three cheers for Tiani Jennings, our Green Visions site manager!

When Morgan Barry, manager of the Green Visions program, heard that Monroe County was looking for young people to recognize, he said it was a no-brainer to nominate Tiani Jennings.

The 21-year-old manages our job development/garden site in the JOSANA neighborhood. She grew up in that Northwest Rochester neighborhood but now lives in suburban Greece. This summer is Jennings’ fourth with Green Visions.

“She mentors 15 others.  She helps them trains them, helps them find jobs. She’s the same age as many of these kids but you kind of forget about that,” Barry said. “She’s a leader in this community. People look up to her.”

County officials agreed with Barry that Jennings is outstanding. She won Monroe County’s “Young Citizen of the Year Award” earlier in June.

“I’m just incredibly proud of Tiani,” Barry said. “Any recognition I can get shone on her is a great thing.” Her pay for 35 hours a week at the Green Visions gardens doesn’t go far enough to compensate her for all she does to guide and inspire other youth, Barry said.

Jennings received the award from County Executive Cheryl DiNolfo at a special event. County legislators representing both JOSANA and Greece took part in the recognition.

“It was so lovely. I felt so special,” Jennings said. She also was gratified to see her hard work paying off in the form of recognition.  “Just to get involved in the community where I grew up…how can I not get involved?”

Jennings has been following two career paths for several years now. From April to October, when the Green Visions program is operating, she works in landscaping. “I’m a nature body. I love working outside,” she said.

The rest of the year she works as a home health aide. She’s planning to attend college to get a license as a registered nurse, upgrading from homecare. Still, we can tell she’s pulled in two directions, as she says would also love to find full-time work in landscaping.

“I love Green Visions. It’s like a piece of my heart,” she said.

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The FlourGarden, blossoming in May

The FlourGarden, blossoming in May

At last. The FlourGarden has been completed for several months. But the first week in May, Delta Fountains of Jacksonville, Florida, will come to Rochester to start up the garden’s waterworks and program the fountains and lights. It won’t be the dancing waters of Bellagio, but it will be pretty special. Delta Fountains’ many major projects of national acclaim include both the September 11th Memorial Fountain in New York City and the Oklahoma Memorial Fountain in Oklahoma City. Oh, and there have been quite a few splash parks in between, as well as water features on New York City’s High Line, too.

To celebrate, we at Greentopia will host a grand opening for the FlourGarden, Tuesday, May 17th at 10:30 a.m. There will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony and comments from dignitaries gathered at Brown’s Race, the street that is home to both our offices and the FlourGarden. We encourage well-wishers to come to the event to show support for this first leg of Greentopia’s big vision, the GardenAerial, a series of gardens and amenities surrounding High Falls. This spring the first plants — native to the area — will blossom as, we hope, the GardenAerial takes root, too.

And if you enjoy this little event, stay tuned for the much larger Garden Party, May 22, following in our tradition of really cool events. Come join us as we grow.

An exciting partnership blossoms for Green Visions

An exciting partnership blossoms for Green Visions

Green Visions is planting new seeds. Not just the kinds that produce great cut flowers, but the kinds that produce opportunities for a new group of youth – developmentally disabled students at Edison Career & Technology High School.

The program has partnered with Edison’s Buildings & Grounds Careers program on a pilot project in three ways:

  • Students recently planted 5,000 seeds in the Edison greenhouse that will be transplanted into Green Visions’ gardens in the JOSANA neighborhood later this spring.
  • Two students from the program have been selected to be among the 15 interns who participate in Green Vision’s job training by working 20 weeks, from May through October, in the cut flower gardens in northwest Rochester.
  • Another six to eight students in the program will come as a group to the Green Visions gardens once a week for 10 weeks, too. Their performance as volunteers will help identify future interns, who are paid a stipend for their work.

“One of the major hurdles for people with a disability is getting that first job,” said Lewis Stess, co-founder of Greentopia.  So far, most graduates of the Green Visions programs have gone on to jobs, but not within the landscaping field, Stess said. But the students from Edison may be an even better fit for this kind of landscaping work.  “They could become great gardeners, great landscapers, great bouquet-makers,” he said.

Meanwhile, Green Visions has just been recognized by the Rochester region chapter of the Sierra Club with its annual Environmental Leadership Award. Morgan Barry and Tiani Jennings, managers of Green Visions, accepted the award April 21.

This latest accolade and the new partnership with Edison come at a time when Green Visions is ramping up its ability to serve commercial accounts. Last year Green Visions provided 15 bouquets a week to Wegmans’ East Avenue store. This year the order has been upped to 100 bouquets shared among three Wegmans stores.

“We’re going to be the only local suppliers of cut flowers,” Stess said. “And we supply those flowers from vacant, unused lots.”

Youngsters 18 to 22 who come from the Northwest part of the city will still fill most of the internships Green Visions provides. In a neighborhood like JOSANA, paid internships can be a rare opportunity leading to sustained employment. Besides providing a job reference and experience, the Green Visions program also provides certification in job and environmental safety practices — important credentials for landing another job.

Such training may be even more valuable for Edison’s students. Morgan Barry, program director for Green Visions, noted that the unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year-olds with disabilities is 70 percent nationally, which is double the rate for their non-disabled peers.

Chris McCoy, the Buildings and Grounds Careers teacher at Edison said, “One of the greatest indicators of post-secondary employment for individuals with disabilities is whether or not a student works or volunteers during high school. Community partners such as Green Visions provide a real-life work setting as well as the types of job training skills that are the difference between employment and sitting at home.”