URBAN WATERS

The Center For Transformation

The Center For Environmental Transformation

Program Description

The Center For Environmental Transformation will educate and empower Camden residents through resource training focused on watershed education and green jobs initiative to construct subsidized rainbarrels for Camden residents, propagate raingarden native plants, and maintain raingardens in partnership with Camden SMART (Stormwater Management and Resource Training). This training curriculum will also connect the participants with the best available science in native species and green infrasture design.

The nature of this project is collaborative in nature. The participants learn from all the organizations youth and leaders to demonstrate various aspects of watershed conservation and restoration through team teaching and cross-pollinating within the various organizations, in youth led curriculum development and leadership traininig.

A. Education: For the 2012 school year students in the Environmental Science Classes of public and charter schools in Camden will collaborate with a host of environmental agencies in the Delaware Watershed. This will occur with the Camden BEES (Building Environmental Education Solutions) of Camden High School and the UrbanTrekkers Program of Urban Promise School, adults through rainbarrel courses and recycling inititiaves. The areas of education will focus on:

1. Wildlife Around the Cooper River

2. Urban stormwater and the sewershed

3. Mapping Watersheds and Foodsheds

4. Awareness into Action: Environmental Justice stormwater management

5. Environmental Justice Retreats networking groups from “up-stream” with the “down-stream”

B. Awareness into Action: This component will educate the youth and adults in the process of making a difference in their community toward solving the problems leading to sustainable development:

1. Construct Rainbarrels: 100

2. Offering build your own rainbarrel workshop to County residents: 2

3. Propagate raingarden plants: 3,000

4. Maintain set number of planted raingardens

5. Native plant manual produced for citywide development projects.

6. Launching citywide recycling incentive program in city schools and institutions through Terracycle. Many of the materials that persist in the waterways of the Delaware River Watershed can be up-cycled through this innovative program, through education for sustainability

8. Collaborative: service learning pilot restoration project with plants grown from native nursery

The Center for Environmental Transformation (CFET) includes Eve’s Garden, a seed-to-table gardening program for youth in Camden, a 24-bed retreat center focused on Environmental Justice, a native plant nursery, and orchard. The youth grow 12,000 heirloom seedlings a year, design, plant, and harvest the the various gardens. The food is brought to the farmers market on Thursdays, and cooking classes every Friday at our outdoor bread oven. This past year over 500 youth participated in this programming focused on education for sustainability; in public and private schools, at our greenhouse, orchard, native plant nursery, and garden locations. In this capacity they develop life skills, leadership, financial literacy, business management and communication skills. The parents and other adults from Camden City and County participate in planting the seeds, growing the food, teaching cooking classes, bringing vegetables home from the farmers markets with recipes, and attending the financial literacy classes. Several young people receive a stipend as Junior Farmers through the CFET. Each Junior Farmer saves 15% of their stipend.

At the Environmental Justice Retreats, hundreds of young adults from the Delaware River Watershed a year are educated in the environmental problems of the region and how they disproportionately impact the neighborhoods of Camden. The environmental justice reality tours teach participants what can be done from the household level, to the institutional level, creating jobs that improve the water, air, and food quality for the people of Camden, and the entire Delaware River Valley Region. The CFET mitigates the problems of stormwater run-off and the abundance of waste on Camden streets into the resources for sustainable economic development.

Municipalities Impacted

All of the trash, stormwater, sewage, and recycling for Camden County and beyond come to South Camden. Each day the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority handles more than 50 million gallons sludge from Camden County. The action steps will greatly help to mitigate more than one million gallons of combined stormwater run-off and sewage entering into the Delaware River. This lowers the utility costs for the residents of 37 municipalities of Camden County. The CSO flooding will greatly be reduced in Camden City with strategic placement of raingardens in every neighborhood in collaboration with the Rutgers Water Resource Department. This investment will also help to create jobs for Camden City residents.

Timeline

January: Year-round education in schools, at the CFET gardens and Retreat Center, Asset Mapping, Macroinvertabrate sampling, watersampling

February: Launching terracycle recycling initiative in schools “Recycle for a new spring”

March: Propagate Raingarden Plants: evaluation

April: Rainbarrel Workshops

May: Raingarden Maintenance Training

June: ongoing rain garden maintenance: evaluation

July: Macroinvertabrate sampling, water sampling

August : Fruit Tree propagation

September: Orchard Plantings, Rainbarrel Workshop: evaluation

October : Native plant transplanting

November: Rain garden manual production

December: Evaluation and reporting

Evaluation

Expansive outcomes, will be measured directly where outcome-goals are quantifiable. Measurements will be taken quarterly and annually. In addition surveys/evaluations will be submitted by each service-learning group staying one night or more at the CFET. The survey/evaluation will be created to generate quantifiable responses related to the expansive outcome goals as well as to generate anecdotal assessment and feedback loops. Lastly, a key aspect of this project is following up with groups after they complete their education for sustainability experience and transformational impact. Results of initiatives by our "graduates" will be noted quarterly, shared through the web and other media, and tallied at the end of the year. The Center For Environmental Transformation (CFET) maintains a culture of assessment, from the Board of Trustees to the Junior Farmers. Our goal is to maximize resources for the community, for food security and sustainability in Camden. To that end we record all action items achieved, develop interactive asset maps, as well as tracking CFET participants. We regularly solicit feedback from our participants in the form of written evaluations as well as focus groups. We intend to report the number of participants in this program and the rain garden and barrel initiatives supported by the EENJ, as well as participant feedback through student-created assessment and educational video production and program documentation. Thank you for considering this investment in the Center For Environmental Transformation.

Statement and Overall Commitment

Youth-led education for sustainability creates environmental justice in Camden, NJ through community-based education, action, and service development. The Environmental Endowment of New Jersey investment will be met by ongoing support from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, The Scanlan Family Foundation, the Danelli Foundation, as well as others. The Center For Environmental Transformation greatly looks forward to working with you in this great work.

Hundreds of service learning participants a year active in service learning volunteering from days to weeks at a time. The CFET commits to three Jr. Farmers six hours a week, three adult Americorp Workers, donated video production, board expertise, day use of the Center kitchen, dining room, art room, greenhouse, orchard, and native plant nursery. The CFET is also committed to developing science-based watershed commitment

Key Personnel

Andrea Ferich has worked in the neighborhood of Waterfront South for the last eight years establishing an urban heirloom seedling greenhouse, farmers market, orchard, and native plant nursery. She has collaborated with many organizations across the city as a community organizer, urban farmer, environmental educator, and film maker. She is the co-chair of the Waterfront South Environmental Network, co-chair Camden Food Security Advisory Board, and member of the Camden Greenteam. Her most recent fellowships include the Environmental Leadership Program and the Cloud Institute Education for Sustainability.

The Center was the recipient of the 2011 EPA Environmental Achievement Award.

Sustainability Initiatives Project Budget Proposal

Staff salary (benefits and overhead)

Director of Sustainability 50%

$25,000

Direct Programming

Rain barrels $2,000

Natives Rain Garden Plants $6,000

Fruit $8,000

Soil and Seeds $2,000

Sustainability Interns $10,800

Retreat Cost $60/person/night*

$28,800 + retreat costs

Total Project Budget $53,800

Requested Amount: $11,000+ retreat costs

2012 Overall Operating Budget: Anticipated Revenue $117,550.40

· Grants $60,000.00

· Direct Public Support $15,000.00

Product Sales $10,550.00

Retreats $25,000.00

Fundraiser events $5,500.00

(please see attached itemized overall budget)

Budget Narrative

The Center for Environmental Transformation (CFET) promotes environmental justice in Camden, New Jersey through sustainable community development, education and project implementation across the Delaware River Watershed. The Center leads innovative sustainable initiatives for leadership development and green-collar jobs, training youth and community residents through education, empowerment, and action. The green infrastructure projects directly transform the problems of outdated sewage, and stormwater systems into resources for sustainable community development through environmental justice.