The Park Slope Civic Council does a really cool thing annually. They take the proceeds from the annual House Tour and give it back to individuals and organizations in Park Slope that are doing good work. These 18 grants total $10,000 and this year they're going to help fund projects at schools, charities, cultural
institutions and other organizations. I see that any non-profit school or group working in Park Slope is welcome to apply for a grant. There guidelines are here and applications for the 2009-2010 cycle will be posted in the fall.

Here are this year’s grantees. It's a great narrative of things that are going on in Park Slope this year.

Chocolate Chip Chamber Music: 2008-2009
Community Concert Series. CCCM delivers music education programming to
young children in our community. The grant will help offset costs of
CCCM’s marketing, outreach and online communication efforts.

Park Slope Food Coop in Cooperation with Caribbean Women’s Health Association, Inc.: Brooklyn
Food Conference: Local Action For Global Change. This one-day
conference, funded in part by this grant, will examine the intersection
of social justice, human and environmental health and sustainability.

P.S. 10 PTA:
Chess Club: After School Enrichment Program. Due to budget cuts, the
school can no longer fund free after-school programs. PSCC funding will
help keep the school’s chess club going, with all its educational and
social benefits.

Spoke the Hub Dancing, Inc.: New
Film Venue and Screening. Our grant will help purchase a digital
projector for monthly screenings of independent films at Spoke the
Hub’s newly renovated Re:Creation Center at 748 Union Street.

Old Stone House:
South Garden. There is a beautiful new dog run in Washington (formerly
J.J. Byrne) Park. The Old Stone House plans to turn the old dog run
(left) into a beautiful garden and outdoor environmental classroom. Our
grant will help facilitate the transition.

The
Urban Memory Project with the Secondary School for Research at John Jay
(SSR), the Park Slope Civic Council, the Old Stone House and the
Brooklyn Historical Society: Preserving Memories of an Evolving
Urban Neighborhood. This fall, SSR students interviewed 17 long-term
Park Slope residents as part of their Brooklyn History class. Our
funding will help pay for the transcription of the interviews.

Good Shepherd Services:
Healthy Youth Relationship Options (HYRO). Funding will provide seed
money for a curriculum informing young adults about healthy
relationships and the prevention of domestic violence. Participants who
attend Good Shepherd’s Young Adult Borough Centers in Brooklyn will be
trained as peer educators in their communities and schools.

The Green-Wood Historic Fund:
Family Day at Green-Wood Cemetery. The Green-Wood Historic Fund, which
maintains Green-Wood Cemetery’s historic monuments and buildings, will
develop a Family Day Scavenger Hunt with an educational and community
theme. The grant will help publicize the event.

Friends of Douglas Greene Park, Inc.:
Community Outreach. The grant will help fund the May 2 Family Day in
the park. The group is working toward major renovations of the
long-neglected public space on 3rd Avenue.

P77K@902:
Green Thumb Hydroponics. Students in the school’s Culinary Arts classes
will learn how to grow herbs, fruits and vegetables without soil, using
a water based system. The grant will help the school develop the
project.

Prospect Hill Senior Services Center:
Community Story Time. Center seniors will read teacher-selected
material to pre-school and elementary-school children. The program will
encourage dialog between the generations, and our funding will help
purchase books and a cabinet to store them in.

Prospect Park Alliance: Replanting
at the Front of the Villa. With help from our grant, the Alliance can
plant more shrubs and bulbs in front of Litchfield Villa — a ongoing
project that has suffered from budget cuts.

P.S. 39 PTA: Spruce
Up Our Old School. The grant will help brighten up the school with
window boxes and a vegetable garden, which will be maintained
year-round by parent volunteers.

P.S. 107 (John W. Kimball Learning Center):
P.S. 107 Edible Garden. Our grant will supplement money raised by the
PTA to create a fruit and vegetable garden to provide students with an
outdoor laboratory for learning about earth sciences, nutrition, and
the environment.

P.S. 321 PTA: Front
Entrance Improvement Project, Phase 2. A PSCC grant helped with Phase
1, when benches and landscaping were added to areas along 7th Avenue.
Our second grant will help with Phase 2, in which benches and landscape
improvements will be added to the areas flanking the main entry stairs.

Reel Works Teen Filmmaking:
Reel Works/DOE Screening at Old Stone House. The Reel Works youth media
program has created a Department of Education-sponsored DVD of films
about Internet safety for distribution to middle and high schools. Our
grant will help fund a screening and discussion this spring targeted to
teens at Middle School 51 and the high schools at John Jay.

Secondary Schools for Law, Journalism and Research at John Jay:
Records Wall. Our grant will help fund an “Athletics Wall of Fame,”
which will recognize student-athletes for both athletic and academic
excellence. Despite severe budget constraints, the schools fielded
teams this year in boys’ and girls’ varsity basketball, boys’ junior
varsity basketball and girls’ varsity volleyball.

Slope Street Cats: Trap-Neuter-Return
(T-N-R) Certification Workshops in Park Slope. Funding will enable
Slope Street Cats to offer free workshops to Park Slope residents. The
workshops will focus on what T-N-R is, why it’s effective and how to
safely facilitate a project affecting feral cats in our neighborhood.
 
This
year’s Grants Committee included Chairperson Greg Sutton, Nathaniel
Allman, Alexa Halsall, Nelly Isaacson, Robert Levine, Eric McClure,
Lauri Schindler and Gilly Youner.