About Us
Groundwork USA is national non-profit that coordinates, supports, and strengthens local Groundwork trusts operating across the United States. Each local trust is dedicated to renewing and restoring distressed neighborhoods through environmental projects and programs that bring local residents, government, youth, and businesses together. Groundwork trusts, which are independent non-profits, are established in places with an industrial past that have been largely left behind by economic growth in the last few decades. In general, we are sought in communities where there is a great vacuum of greening initiatives.
Our organization is very action oriented. In 2010 alone, our network of 19 trusts:
- planted 1,726 neighborhood trees and shrubs, and 25,572 flowering plants and vegetables;
- reclaimed 220 acres of urban open space and improved 36 acres of brownfields/derelict land;
- restored and cleaned up nearly 65,000 feet of riparian habitat;
- cleaned out 280 tons of trash and debris;
- involved 520 businesses, provided 420 jobs, and provided 6,829 weeks of environmental and green job training; and
- actively engaged over 4,319 at-risk youth, and engaged 41,749 community members at 298 local events.
Groundwork USA was established in 2003 to support the growing network of Groundwork trusts across the United States. It organizes national conferences and meetings, shares model programs, reviews emerging trends, conducts regular peer reviews, and compiles results from all of the trusts each year.
Groundwork USA is based on the successful Groundwork movement in Great Britain, which has renewed hundreds of similar places in the United Kingdom since the early 1980s. Our primary partners are the EPA Brownfields Program and the National Park Service Rivers, Trails & Conservation Assistance Program.
