by Diana Louise Carter | Tuesday, June 21, 2016 | Green Visions, Greentopia
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.
by Diana Louise Carter | Saturday, June 11, 2016 | Green Visions, Greentopia
In our continuing efforts to make the Green Visions self-sustaining, the workforce preparation program is tackling more than growing flowers in the JOSANA neighborhood and selling them in bouquets. The High Falls Business Association has hired the group to plant and water more than 30 planters in the immediate area. And, Green Visions workers will also maintain the recently opened Flour Garden on Brown’s Race.
“It’s the first time the program in JOSANA ties in with the program here,” said Michael A. Philipson, Greentopia’s co-founder, as he sat in the office on Brown’s Race. Greentopia’s vision of a series of gardens and amenities surround High Falls includes providing jobs to keep these new features attractive for visitors near and far. The current contract has Green Visions trainees also taking care of Granite Mills Park (at the north end of the FlourGarden) and a pocket park on Main Street next to an Rochester Gas & Electric building.
“It’s a tangible collaboration between Greentopia and the High Falls” Business Improvement District,” said Rachel Walsh, director of Rochester’s first EcoDistrict.
Green Visions workers are also tackling rain gardens at the Rochester Public Market. Because many of the bouquets the group will grow this year are already earmarked to be sold at Wegmans, Green Visions is seeking related work landscaping. The program’s success is getting noticed. Managers Tiani Jennings and Morgan Barry accepted an award from the Rochester Chapter of the Sierra Club in April. And June 9 Jennings was presented with a youth community service award from Monroe County.
We must be doing something right!
by Diana Louise Carter | Friday, April 15, 2016 | Green Visions, Greentopia
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.”
by Diana Louise Carter | Wednesday, July 22, 2015 | Green Visions, Greentopia
At the end of a rainy-turned-sunny day, two young women are packing up at the Green Visions gardens on Rochester’s northwest side before planning to walk to their nearby homes. Tiani Jennings, 20, has already won another job with her Green Visions credentials. Tamyha Jones, 18, is hoping the certifications she has earned by working with Green Visions will help her secure a better-paying job the next time she looks for painting work.
Jennings is in her third year of working with the April-to-October job training program and she’s now an assistant site manager. Jones (pictured above) used to volunteer at the Smith Street site when her older sister worked for Green Visions. This year is her first year as an actual employee at the garden, where she plants, weeds and waters flowers, and makes bouquets.
Morgan Barry, the site manager who oversees the program for Greentopia, said Green Visions currently has 13 employees who each work up to 20 hours a week. Many of them also juggle a second job, school, or classes to earn their General Education Diploma. Besides working the gardens in the JOSANA Neighborhood, the Green Visions employees sell bouquets from the site and at the Rochester City Public Market on Saturdays. Flowers are also for sale through the Greentopia web site. The flowers serve multiple purposes as they:
• Provide income in a neighborhood with few jobs
• Provide 22 weeks (at least twice as long as summer programs) of job training during the growing season
• Make the soil healthier
• Beautify the neighborhood
• Create community engagement.
Jennings said she is planning to move into the home health care field, but she’s earned marketable skills and support by working with Green Visions. “This job has helped me from the very, very first day,” she said. “I’m 20, I’m very young, but I have management experience, I have a great resume. And, Morgan is always in my corner. I know I can count on him if I need him.”
And Greentopia is in this neighborhood’s corner, too.
