David Sepulveda Photo
Saniyah, 6, left, Deonna, 7, help in a Cherry Ann volunter clean-up.
Neighbors who reclaimed a park in Newhallville got a $40,000 assist to make it even better.
The assist comes in the form of a grant from the The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation (tied to the company that sells lawn fertilizer).
The foundation picked greenspace projects in four cities for the $40,000 grant. The winners were announced at last week’s U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in D.C., which New Haven Mayor Toni Harp attended.
Neighbors on Cherry Ann Street — half of whom live in New Haven’s Newhallville neighborhood, half (on the side of the street) of who live in Hamden — have worked with the parks department, Urban Resources Initiative (URI), New Haven Land Trust, and other agencies over the past two years to reclaim the overgrown five-acre area at the end of a dead-end street and turn it into a park for the kids. (Read about that here.)
Harp said on her weekly “Mayor Monday” program on WNHH radio that the money will help the neighborhoods create a garden there to grow food. Besides giving kids a safe place to play, it ties the neighborhood more closely to nearby King Robinson Magnet School as well as Southern Connecticut State University.
“It was a good team effort,” parks chief Rebecca Bombero said of obtaining the grant. She said the money will enable the park’s volunteers to add plantings around the playscape, increase linkages to King-Robinson, and employ teens to work on park projects.
