{"id":661696,"date":"2024-06-26T00:03:50","date_gmt":"2024-06-26T04:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/?p=661696"},"modified":"2024-06-26T21:26:37","modified_gmt":"2024-06-27T01:26:37","slug":"community-rain-garden-installed-and-mural-painted-at-hackensack-high-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/661696\/","title":{"rendered":"Community Rain Garden Installed and Mural Painted at Hackensack High School"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
A community rain garden was installed at Hackensack High School. Volunteers of all ages assisted with installing the plants in the garden. Photo credit: Luhrs & Associates<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Hackensack, New Jersey:\u00a0 The Northern New Jersey Community Foundation (NNJCF) installed successfully a community rain garden and held two interactive painting activities at Hackensack High School on June 1 at the Boost the Block Goes Green festival. The NNJCF and the Hackensack Environmental Justice Alliance produced and gifted the large rain garden to the community.\u00a0\u00a0The festival also featured the development of a community mural.<\/p>\n

Rain Garden Installed<\/u><\/p>\n

The rain garden, designed by\u00a0Dave Chalek\u00a0of Sprout Farms and Gardens in Teaneck, New Jersey, is comprised of 100% native plants from the area.\u00a0\u00a0This urban rain garden is a demonstration model, using 160 plants and 28 varieties.\u00a0\u00a0Almost all of the plants are salt tolerant and will not be damaged by the road salt often used in winter.\u00a0\u00a0Chalek designed the garden to reflect a beautiful learning environment, which reflects a mini-botanical garden.\u00a0\u00a0He installed plants important to New Jersey\u2019s history, such as New Jersey Tea, and plants to attract a wide range of birds and other pollinators.<\/p>\n

The Foundation also donated 40 outdoor native plants, 40 spider plants for indoors, and 61 packets of wildflower seeds.\u00a0\u00a0Passersby stopped at the NNJCF\u2019s exhibit table.\u00a0\u00a0They were invited to take these items for free to use at home.<\/p>\n

Interactive Painting Sessions<\/u><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Volunteers from M&T Bank participated in the installation of the community rain garden. Photo Credit: Luhrs & Associates<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two interactive painting sessions were also led by professional artists Amrisa Niranjan and M\u00f3nica Chavarr\u00eda-Malin.\u00a0\u00a0Resident artist Amrisa Niranjan designed a 4 x 12 mural — \u201cCare for Your Little Patch of Earth\u201d– for people of all ages to help paint.\u00a0\u00a0Chavarr\u00eda-Malin led a painting party that attracted over 40 community members, who painted and took home their art.<\/p>\n

Volunteers were critical to the success of the rain garden and the community mural.\u00a0\u00a0People of all ages came and volunteered to install the plants in the community rain garden, to serve as environmental justice and green infrastructure ambassadors, or to help artist Niranjan paint the mural.\u00a0\u00a0Hackensack Public Schools,\u00a0M&T Bank\u00a0and\u00a0TD\u00a0Bank assisted with recruiting the volunteers.<\/p>\n

Green Generation<\/u><\/p>\n

During the festival, Stephanie Silva\u00a0of Project Wilderness gave a very informative, inspiring presentation \u2013 The Green Generation: Building a Sustainable Future Together.\u00a0\u00a0Silva discussed the importance of young people\u2019s involvement in the environment.\u00a0\u00a0She pointed out New Jerseyites experienced at least one major, life-threatening storm in their lifetime, with more storms expected.\u00a0\u00a0According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, over the last 50 years in New Jersey, storms resulting in extreme rain increased by 71%, a faster rate than anywhere else in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0Surface and groundwater quality \u2014 the water people drink \u2014 becomes impaired, increased nutrients and contaminants enter waters found in runoff from more intense rain events.\u00a0\u00a0Silva mentioned that bringing a community together helps to create sustainable solutions, including the use of more green infrastructure to mitigate flooding.<\/p>\n

Supporters and Partners<\/u><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Volunteers assisted artist Amrisa Niranjan to paint the community mural. Photo credit: Luhrs & Associates<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Several supporters and partners made possible the installation of the community rain garden.\u00a0\u00a0These supporters included\u00a0TD\u00a0Charitable Foundation,\u00a0M&T Bank, and Columbia Bank Foundation.\u00a0 In addition, The Funders Network, Suburban Consulting Engineers,\u00a0PSEG, Garden Communities\/The Jefferson and many individual supporters donated to the project.\u00a0\u00a0NNJCF joined lead partner\u00a0Greater Bergen Community Action, Inc.\u00a0to develop and implement the festival.\u00a0\u00a0Other partners included the City of Hackensack, Hackensack Public Schools, the Johnson Public Library, Fairleigh Dickinson University and the Second Reformed Church of Hackensack.<\/p>\n

Green Infrastructure for Environmental Justice<\/u><\/p>\n

The development and installation of the rain garden\u00a0was part of the NNJCF’s\u00a0Green Infrastructure for Environmental Justice\u00a0<\/strong>program.\u00a0\u00a0The program seeks to reduce flooding\u00a0and improve environmental conditions for residents in central Hackensack and other parts of the city affected by flooding.\u00a0 More information about this program may be found at\u00a0http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/GreenInfrastructureJustice<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0For further information about the NNJCF, the rain garden and the community mural, contact Executive Director Leonardo Vazquez at\u00a0leo@nnjcf.org<\/a>\u00a0or 201-568-5608, x2.<\/p>\n

About Northern New Jersey Community Foundation <\/u><\/p>\n

Founded in 1998, The Northern New Jersey Community Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c) 3 organization based in Hackensack, New Jersey, celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2023.\u00a0\u00a0The NNJCF works with local governments, school districts, businesses, non-profit organizations, and citizen groups to improve community life.\u00a0\u00a0Through collaborative partnerships, regional problems are identified and resolved.\u00a0\u00a0Opportunities are discovered and explored by talking and learning from each other and sharing ideas, best practices, services, and resources.\u00a0\u00a0The Foundation’s primary areas of work are the environment, arts and culture, public health, education, civic engagement, and philanthropy.\u00a0 For more information, visit\u00a0www.nnjcf.org<\/a>, send an email to\u00a0nnjcf@nnjcf.org<\/a>, or call 201-568-5608.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hackensack, New Jersey:\u00a0 The Northern New Jersey Community Foundation (NNJCF) installed successfully a community rain garden and held two interactive painting activities at Hackensack High School on June 1 at the Boost the Block Goes Green festival. The NNJCF and the Hackensack Environmental Justice Alliance produced and gifted the large rain garden to the community.\u00a0\u00a0The festival also featured the development of a community mural. Rain Garden Installed The rain garden, designed by\u00a0Dave Chalek\u00a0of Sprout Farms and Gardens in Teaneck, New Jersey, is comprised of 100% native plants from the area.\u00a0\u00a0This…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":661697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47748],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-661696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661696"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":661703,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661696\/revisions\/661703"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malayalamdailynews.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}