Our Environmental Commitment
National Grid Foundation is a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to enhancing the quality of life, economic strength and environmental stewardship across the National Grid service territory. The Foundation’s mission is to create opportunities for solutions to today’s educational and environmental challenges.
Celebrating Earth Day, Every Day
By Deborah Drew
One of the headline topics on everyone’s minds these days is our environment, climate and how to reverse the damage done to our Earth by industrial growth.
While National Grid Foundation is one small entity in the field of players working to improve, enhance and protect our environment, its mission and action is mighty. Its mission is to address global issues and begin at the local level. The Foundation supports and engages non-profit organizations that take ownership for implementing educational and environmental programs and solutions. These partnerships help build stronger communities — the important first step in transforming individuals, neighborhoods, cities and, ultimately, our planet.
This issue of Destiny is focused on our Earth and the enthusiastic, consistent hard work some of the non-profit organizations Foundation supports are doing around environmental education, environmental protection, and mitigating the effects of climate change.
Last year Foundation invested in nearly 12 quality organizations across its footprint in New York and Massachusetts supporting environmental education for youth from Buffalo to Boston. In fact, about 30% of its annual budget delivers programming that moves thousands of students from kindergarten through high school toward environmental stewardship, teaching more about our Earth and how to help restore and enhance our world.
Layer on the Foundation’s “teach the teacher” programs such as those at Molloy University’s Teaching Green Institutes in Rockville Centre, NY and the Acton, Mass. Discovery Museum’s Traveling Science Workshops program, then the Foundation is impacting tens of thousands of students who are learning from teachers about our world and how to help it. They are the seeds that will grow our planet into a better, healthier place in which to live.
While Earth Day may have been in April, the Foundation celebrates, educates and protects our environment as a daily endeavor through the teachers, students and organizations it supports. For more than 25 years now, the Foundation has funded programs that support climate, and environmental stewardship, and even workforce development programs that create jobs in the renewable energy space.
The strategic plan moving forward? Keep the momentum going for another 25 years and enhance quality of life, create opportunities to today’s and tomorrow’s educational and environmental issues, give people the tools to build hope to develop stronger communities and world.
John Denver: Earth Day Every Day
Celebrate (1990)
A huge supporter of Earth Day, John Denver, known for his iconic songs “Annie’s Song” and “Take Me Home, Country Roads,” was one of 20thcentury music’s great champions of environmental causes. In 1990, the year he released an album called Earth Songs, he was given the first World Ecology Award by the International Center for Tropical Ecology at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Earth Songs, an album that was originally available only by mail order, included his joyously positive composition “Earth Day Every Day (Celebrate),” which urged people to “celebrate land and sea/celebrate you and me.” Denver, who went on to launch an innovative tree-planting scheme in America, remained concerned about the environment. The last song he penned before his death in 1997 was an environmental song about Yellowstone Park.
LYRICS:
Celebrate morning
The cry of a loon on a lake in the night
the dreams that are born in the dawn's early light
Celebrate morning
Celebrate living
The laughter that sings in the heart of a child
The freedom that flies at the call of the wild
Celebrate living
Celebrate evening
The stars that appear in the loss of the sun
Whispering winds, we are one, we are one
Celebrate earth day, every day
Celebrate earth day, every day
Celebrate land and sea
Celebrate you and me
Celebrate earth Day, every day
National Grid Foundation's Environmental support throughout the years
Solar One
Solar One’s Green Design Lab, a K-12 educational program
This year for Earth Day, Solar One focused its efforts on one major event with the potential to reach and engage with approximately 1,000 people. On April 27, the organization led a solar car building workshop for the American Museum of Natural History's Earthfest. The Earthfest festival offers hands-on science and art activities where students can learn, have fun and speak with professional scientists.
In addition to other earth-friendly workshops, youth participants explored how solar power works and the benefits of clean energy as a solution to climate change. During Solar One’s fun-filled workshop, students had the opportunity to become a solar technician, build a car and install solar panels. Each vehicle traveled at different speeds depending on how the students positioned the panel on the car.
National Grid Foundation supports Solar One’s Green Design Lab, a K-12 educational program, which promotes hands-on learning through science, technology and design. The students receive hands-on experience, develop creative thinking and problem-solving skills, and become environmental and sustainability stewards. ❦
Recipe for Compost Lasagna!
Lasagna composting is all about the layers. The base layer of the lasagna starts with newspaper or cardboard. This will smother existing grass and keep weeds from growing. 4 to 6 sheets of newspaper or a single layer of cardboard will do to start. Soak the paper layer thoroughly to start decomposition and help it stay in place.
Alternate Brown and Green Layers
Top the paper or cardboard base with a 2-inch layer of carbon-rich "brown" material such as: chopped leaves, straw, sawdust, wood ash, wood chips, and pine needles. The smaller or more finely chopped the material is, the more quickly it will decompose.
Add a 2-inch "green" layer on top of the brown. This layer might be grass clippings, kitchen scraps from fruits and vegetables, well-rotted horse or cow manure, coffee grounds, and garden trimmings. It's not the color that matters, it's the materials which have moisture in it, unlike the dry and crispy brown material.
Continue layering 2-inch green layers on top of 2-inch brown until your lasagna is anywhere from 18 inches to 3 feet tall. As the materials decompose, they'll shrink down quite a bit. For a finished edge, ring your lasagna compost bin with stones or bricks. If you want to create a raised bed in the space, add sturdy boards around your layers.
Bugs and earthworms go to work
No worries, if you build it - they will come. Microbes and earthworms will show up to your lasagna layered feast. It can take 6 months to a year to transform the organic debris into nutrient-rich soil. Exact timing depends on the size of the composted debris, temperature, and moisture. It's well worth the wait.
I know you will love this recipe!
City Growers Uses Urban Agriculture To Engage Youth
City Growers is a youth development and education
nonprofit that teaches New York City youth about the environment and the importance of the urban ecosystem.
City Growers uses urban agriculture to engage youth in experiential learning, nurturing a lifelong relationship to food, their health, and the natural world.
Volunteer Events for Adults:
City Growers hosts an Earth Week volunteer day for adults on the Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm. Earth Week always falls just as our season starts, and volunteers help City Growers staff with jobs that are often too big for them to tackle alone, like preparing the overwintered Learning Bed for Spring and helping us restore the soil.
Green Ambassadors at Gowanus Canal Conservatory
City Growers' paid afterschool program for teens celebrates Earth Day everyday, but has special plans for Earth Week this year. The twelve participants are teaming up with the Gowanus Canal Conservatory for a special tour and trash tally, clean-up and analysis! During this visit the Green Ambassadors will also learn about storm water overflow and green infrastructure, allowing them to think big about the future of New York City's urban ecosystem. ❦
Green Ambassadors Cohort at Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm.
A volunteer weeding at Brooklyn Grange Farm as part of an Earth Day Volunteer event.
Two Green Ambassador students picking herbs on a field trip.
National Grid Employees Volunteer at
The Campaign Against Hunger (TCAH)
During Earth week in April, TCAH invited National Grid employees to volunteer at its Linden Farm in Brooklyn, NY. Due to rainy weather, the volunteer opportunity moved to TCAH’s Brooklyn Community Food Distribution Center, where National Grid volunteers packed grocery bags to distribute to food-insecure communities. This helps residents in the community receive locally grown nutritious food that may be out of reach due to several circumstances.
Throughout the week, TCAH welcomed a total of five other volunteer groups—The Knot, Santander, Optibus, Re-nuble and the Queens Chapter of Jack and Jill of America—who dedicated their time to giving back to the environment.
Volunteers participated in a variety of tasks that directly contribute to the farm's success such as planting seedlings, aerating compost bins and weeding.
These combined efforts not only benefit TCAH’s farms but also contribute to a healthier planet. Planting seedlings promotes biodiversity and a sustainable food system for the local community, while composting reduces waste and creates a valuable soil amendment. Weeding allows for optimal plant growth and reduces competition for vital space and nutrients from the soil.
For 11 years, National Grid Foundation has supported TCAH’s Green Teens Internship Program and the Healing Garden in Far Rockaway. The Green Teens Program is a paid farm-based apprenticeship, where disadvantaged Far Rockaway youth receive intensive hands-on training in urban agriculture/market management. The program builds character, teaches skills, and guides youth to academic success, community activism, and professional careers in the green economy. ❦
Every Day Is Earth Day
at Grassroots Gardens WNY!
Every Day is Earth Day at Grassroots Gardens WNY! The Buffalo, NY nonprofit’s mission is to share knowledge, power, and resources to grow healthy food, heal systemic harm, and strengthen neighborhood connections through community gardens.
In April, the Grassroots team was extremely busy supporting various gardens and guiding volunteers. After the last snowstorm, the team replaced garden beds at the Putnam Street Community Garden. Volunteers established new gardens at Catharine St. Drexel Catholic Church and the Northwest Buffalo Community Center. University at Buffalo's Dental School student volunteers helped repair raised beds and amend the soil with compost at Celtic Place Community Garden, while church attendees at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church worked to build four additional raised beds after a successful 2023 that led to more interest for growing.
In all, the team repaired 35 raised beds, built 30 new beds, and moved over 40 yards of soil.
In between the garden builds, there was a workshop and volunteer session focused on
blackberry trellising and care. On the school garden front, four schools with 300+ students collaborated with Grassroots’ school garden coordinator to start seeds, prep their gardens, and participate in gardening lessons.
Tim Chen, Executive Director, Grassroots Gardens WNY, said, “Our partnership with and support from National Grid Foundation continues to be a tremendous and essential part of our ability to grow and help our community network. Our work will continue to accelerate, and we're excited to welcome even more new gardens into our network!” ❦
Putnam Street Community Garden
Above: Volunteers established new gardens at Catharine St. Drexel Catholic Church.
Congratulations Discovery Museum Recognized as a 2024 Recipient of the Nation’s Highest Museum and Library Honor
Discovery Museum’s Traveling Science Workshops
Hands-on STEM Explorations Pre-K through Grade Eight
Discovery Museum’s Traveling Science Workshops bring hands-on STEM explorations into Pre-K through grade 8 classrooms throughout Massachusetts. Under the guidance of Museum instructors, kids get to be scientists —asking questions, making predictions, and sharing observations as they experiment with simple, everyday materials. Kids’ natural curiosity and creativity are sparked as they explore and test ideas and solve problems. They come to understand that their worlds are filled with opportunities to engage with and practice science.
With so much time spent on screens and using electronic devices where the inner workings are difficult to see children have little direct experience experimenting with how things work in the physical world. Students are less and less familiar with using their hands to build, construct, and solve problems. This is so important as we think about today’s students as tomorrow’s climate advocates and problem-solvers. Helping students experience that science is real and they are capable of exploring it opens up their perspective and ability to assess information and consider
solutions. Traveling Science Workshops cover 23 different workshop topics including Weather & Climate, Earth Science, and Chemistry, but every topic be it Bubbles, Physical Changes of Matter, Magnetism or Sound Waves prepares kids to be more aware and information-discerning citizens.
Discovery Museum delivered a record-breaking 2,737 Traveling Science Workshops to more than 53,000 students in 116 towns in 2023 nearly every town or city in Eastern Massachusetts. The Museum also hosted more than 11,000 students on Field Trips last year, where students explore STEM concepts in dynamic indoor exhibit galleries focused on water, air, sound, light and color, math, making and tinkering, and more, plus an outdoor nature playscape anchored by a giant accessible treehouse.
National Grid Foundation has a big impact on STEM learning for students in Lowell and Lawrence by providing funding for Discovery Museum to provide free Field Trips and Traveling Science Workshops to schools in those cities, with more than 3,000 students served across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years. ❦
Here’s some of what teachers in Lowell and Lawrence have had to say about Discovery Museum’s Traveling Science Workshops:
“I had one boy tell me that he can't believe that he learned about weather and can't wait to learn more.”
“They absolutely loved it. I also received several messages from parents saying their child came home so excited to share their project.”
A“They were so engaged, and their conversations were carried into discussions throughout the week.”
“My students said, ‘I think I'm starting to love science!’ And, ‘This was the best day ever!’”
s the world becomes more complicated, fast-paced, and technology driven, TSW serves to ignite a passion for STEM in both young and older children, inspiring and preparing them to stand up for science and confidently contribute solutions to our planet’s biggest challenges.
"4th grade students in Lawrence explore acids and bases during the
Chemistry Lab Traveling Science Workshop.”
© Jessica Cronin Photography.
Environmental Science
Boys and Girls Club Stoneham and Wakefield
“With generous support from National Grid Foundation, we are able to make the impossible, possible. Youth are able to learn about urban farming as they plant in our hydroponic garden beds and transfer their seedlings to outdoor beds in the summer. Our young farmers then take produce home for their families, with recipes to try. Our youth have access to guided walks through the Fells.
In a digital age, this is so important for our youth. Being able to expose our participants to the beauty around them, in their own neighborhoods, is amazing, getting youth to understand that there is life outside of cell phones and right in their own backyard is exactly what they need in our fast-paced world. Through our programs, kids and families are truly enjoying the community around them.”
Chief Program Officer
Andrea Baez
Boys and Girls Club Stoneham/Wakefield.
All Photos: Boys and Girls Club Stoneham/Wakefield.
350 school aged students participate in programming (School Year)
225 middle school youth participate in programming (School Year)
Over 500 students a day participate in environmental sciences throughout the summer
150 students participate in guided walks through the Fells
Over 100 students have free access to the Club’s kayak program through library passes
Over 40 Boy Scouts access the kayak program
“ The Earth is what we all have in common.”
— Wendell Berry
Photo: Christine Berardi