Advancing assistance for greener parks and better tracking food bank inventory

This Week’s Top Agenda Items

• A 10-year agreement to keep young volunteers working in city parks
• City shifts expiring pandemic relief dollars to two food banks 

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An agreement to keep young volunteers working in city parks to last 10 years 🔗 

Pittsburgh’s natural spaces may soon have a stronger root system for volunteers.

Council agreed to move forward with a 10-year agreement between the Department of Public Works (DPW) and the Student Conservation Association (SCA) for continued volunteer services. 

The SCA, a national workforce development program, has operated in Pittsburgh since 2001. Volunteers ages 14 through 35 help maintain trails as well as plant trees and remove invasive species through the city’s parks.

Joanna Lemmon, SCA’s program director, said during council’s April 29 committee meeting that the organization’s spring plan focuses on increasing and maintaining the tree canopy. Funding comes from the state’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and does not require a match by the city.

According to the Forestry Division, the city’s average tree canopy cover is 41%^[a]; however, some economically disadvantaged neighborhoods’ is less than 20%. ^[b][c]Higher coverage benefits people’s health and quality of life.

Last month, the city removed 100 trees on the North Shore to make room for the NFL Draft.

Lemmon said the proposed agreement will streamline planning logistics with DPW as well as allow SCA to add its own projects to an annual work plan.

Lisa Ceoffe, the city’s forester, said, “This agreement is an example of how future agreements with other nonprofits can work.”

City planning to send expiring pandemic relief dollars to food banks 🔗 

As the expiration deadline for federal grants looms, the city continues its efforts to spend balances.

Council gave preliminary approval at its April 29 committee meeting to split more than $55,000 in unused federal community development block grants to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank and the JFCS Squirrel Hill Food Bank.

The money initially came through the Cares Act, which provided additional funds for states to distribute during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to assistant director of community development, Kelly Russell, the money going to the two food banks came from three organizations—including $50,000 from Neighborhood Housing Services—that were either unable to use the balance ahead of the deadline or had completed their projects.

Community development program supervisor AJ Miller said the grants came with more spending restrictions than usual. While pandemic response projects were the only grants that qualified for the money initially, that has shifted to cover future pandemic preparation and prevention.

Miller said the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank intends to use its share^[d][e][f] to implement a new system to better track inventory. She said that smaller pantries within the city represent about 16% of the larger organization’s partner pantries.

The deadline for spending the remaining grant money is June 1.