Check out this video message from Van Jones, author of “The Green-Collar Economy” and Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and our partners in the Mayor’s Green Summer Youth Employment Program, DC Greenworks!
Thanks to the Mayor’s Green Summer Youth Employment Program TCCR has successfully solidified a partnership with our outstanding new neighbors, DC Greenworks to create two rain gardens in Trinidad for the benefit of our community and the Anacostia Watershed. The rain gardens provide a natural way to capture stormwater runoff and the pollutants that might otherwise end up in our water supply.
This progressive classroom and field-based training pilot program will be essential in our transformation from a drug community to a garden community as we work with young people to improve our education, economy, and environment.
Through our Green Summer grant, up to 24 young adults aged 14 - 21 will be introduced to environmental issues and solutions, green-collar careers, and gain direct field experience through the installation of rain gardens and designing of a community awareness campaign. Visits to the US Arboretum, Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, Kingman and Heritage Island Park and other local sites will enhance our learning.
501c3 nonprofit DC Greenworks is metro DC’s preeminent green roof advocate and educator working to provide attainable and affordable low impact development technologies and training.
For more information on how you or someone you know may apply, visit: green.dc.gov/summer and select “Green Summer” as your preferred employment option and “Watershed” as your topic.
In 2009, TCCR hopes to complete environmentally friendly construction on an already partially rehabilitated liquor store TCCR Co-Founder and Executive Director, Wilhelmina Lawson donated to the nonprofit. To afford the donation and achieve her goal of providing a job training and job placement center for the community, Ms. Lawson mortgaged her own home – the current administrative headquarters for TCCR - and put up money from her retirement fund.
Once final renovations are complete, The People’s Checkpoint will provide space for the expansion of TCCR’s services and full engagement of TCCR’s partnerships with the nearby Montello Early Childhood Development Center, which provides many community families with affordable, quality day care, supplemental education, and recreational activities; and with New Community Housing Development Organization (NCHDO), of which TCCR is a founding member. Through NCHDO, Ward 5 residents, officials, and agencies are working to cooperatively reclaim abandoned homes, develop new affordable housing, and help low-income families become first-time homeowners.
TCCR’s service expansions will offer pathways to sustainable economy (linking participants to work in progressive industries such as the “green-collar economy”), courses in sustainable education (health and nutrition classes will evolve to include cooking workshops and yoga for physical and mental fitness), and opportunities to create a sustainable community-wide environment (introducing rainwater gardening techniques and organizing access to affordable methods of energy efficiency).
If you are with an organization that would like to partner with our efforts, please contact us, your work is appreciated!
If you are interested in being a sponsor of the construction site or any of our programs and events, please contact us, your help is needed!
Or, donate now: