Browsing around the Park Slope Civic Council website, I discovered that in 2008 the Park Slope Civic Council awarded 18 grants for 2007-8, totaling $9,878. The grants help fund
projects at schools, charities, cultural institutions, and other
organizations at work in Park Slope.

The grants are funded by money raised at the
annual Park Slope Civic Council House Tour, which will be held on May 18th from noon to 5 p.m. starting at the Berkeley Carroll School. For more
information, contact house.tour@parkslopeciviccouncil.org.

Here are the 18 grants approved by PSCC Trustees at their February 2008 meeting:

Park Slope Geriatric Day Center: Early Memory Loss Program.
The grant will buy kits, tools and supplies for the Center’s clients,
including its Early Memory Loss group, who will build doll houses that
will be donated to children’s programs in Park Slope.

Groundswell Community Mural Project: Department of Environmental Protection Water Mural.
In partnership with the Garden of Union and the Department of
Environmental Protection, the Groundswell Summer Leadership Institute
will create a large-scale mural exploring the water cycle and the
importance of green spaces in New York City on the site of the new
community garden planned for the water substation at 4th Avenue and
Sackett Street.

Spoke the Hub: Miles of Tiles Continuing Mosaic Project.
The grant will help buy material that people of all ages will use to
re-create mosaics lost in the renovation and expansion of this
multifaceted neighborhood arts center.

Reel Works Teen Filmmaking: Friday Movie Night at Reel Works.
This teen-curated series exposes young filmmakers to classics to
inspire their own creative cinematic journeys. Funding will be used to
purchase a movie screen, speaker set, and DVD player.

P.S. 321: Adopt-A-Tree-Well.
P.S. 321 classes will care for trees around the edges of the school,
encouraging children to appreciate the environment in their own front
yard. Children, parents, and staff will benefit from the improved
aesthetics of the trees in their environment. Consultants from Trees
NYC will teach the children how to care for the trees. Funds will be
used to purchase gardening tools for the project.

M.S. 447 Math and Science Exploratory School: School-Wide Recycling Program.
Although it’s the law, few New York City public schools actually
recycle. Our grant will help launch a school-wide recycling program at
MS 447, administered by students and led by a teacher who successfully
implemented a similar program at a Bedford Stuyvesant middle school.
Recycling will be integrated into the 6th-grade math curriculum.

Brooklyn Conservatory of Music: Civic Sounds. Our
grant will help fund the Civic Sounds summer community concert series,
Friday afternoons outside the Conservatory.  Genres will include Jazz,
Classical, World, Rock, Pop, and R&B.

Old First Reformed Church: Club Loco.
The year-old club, founded with the help of PSCC’s first Community
Builder grant, provides a venue for teen musicians and a place for
teens aged 14-20 to hang out in a safe environment away from parents
and authority figures. Our grant will be used to increase Club Loco’s
visibility and to increase the diversity of the teens that come to the
club.

Brooklyn Arts Exchange: Opportunities for Teens in the Arts.
The BAX Teen Arts Conference is celebrating 10 years of development and
support for young artists. Funding will help expand BAX’s Higher
Education Opportunities in the Arts program, which offers teens insight
into educational and vocational trajectories in dance and theatre.

Old Stone House: Education Program. The
Old Stone House is participating in a National Endowment for the
Humanities grant to examine the African and African-American experience
in New York in the years 1660-1875. Our grant will help develop a
drama-based curriculum for 7th graders exploring that subject.

Council on the Environment of New York City: Park Slope Computer and Recycling Day. Our
grant will help the Council on the Environment conduct an electronic
recycling day coinciding with our Spring Clean Sweep on April 19.
Electronic gear will be given to Per Scholas, which reconditions usable
equipment and recycles the rest in an environmentally responsible
manner.

Park Slope Senior Center: Park Slope Senior Center’s “Recipes from the Heart.”
The Center’s creative writing class will create a cookbook melding
memories and cultures through the sharing of traditional recipes. Our
grant will help with printing costs.

The Garden of Union: Sunday Afternoon Music Series.
Our grant will help fund live musical performances in the community
garden on Union Street between 4th and 5th Avenues (tentative dates:
May 31, June 21, and October 19).

P.S. 39: P.S. 39 Parent Involvement. Our
grant will help pay for the printing of handouts at a series of parent
involvement workshops ranging in subject matter from “How to Better
Communicate With Your Child” to “Discipline without Punishment.”

Park Slope Christian Help: Soup Kitchen and Pantry Program.
Funding will be used to purchase essential supplies for the CHIPS soup
kitchen, an honored Park Slope Institution serving 200-300 meals a day.

The Green-Wood Historic Fund: Serving Educators to Better Serve Students.
Our grant will help pay for lesson plans and guides for neighborhood
elementary schools that come to the cemetery for tours and instruction
from the cemetery’s Director of School Programs.

Prospect Park Alliance: Bartel-Pritchard Square Planting Project.
With help from our grant, an invasive species, Japanese Barberry, will
be replaced with native shrubs. The plantings will also beautify the
square and its World War I monument.

M.S. 51: The Partnership Gardens Program. Our
grant will be used to purchase plants and gardening materials for four
areas at M.S. 51 and four areas in J.J. Byrne Park that will be cared
for by M.S. 51 students.

Members
of the Grants Committee include: Chairperson Greg Sutton, Nathaniel
Allman, David Alquist, Nelly Isaacson, Ann Kalkhoff, Robert Levine,
Eric McClure and Lauri Schindler. Any community school or group is
welcome to apply for a grant. The guidelines may be read on our web
site, and downloadable applications for the 2008-9 cycle will be posted
in the fall.