2022 Thursday Club Beneficiary:

Groundwork Hudson Valley​

Groundwork Hudson Valley, a Yonkers-based non-profit, aims to create sustainable environmental change in low-income urban neighborhoods through community-based partnerships that directly involve local residents. Their Green Team program hires local teenagers enrolled in the Yonkers Public School system for paid environmental jobs – for many, their first real job. The program focuses on leadership training and a variety of conservation and restoration skills. Groundwork’s daylighting of the Saw Mill River in downtown Yonkers and their Science Barge educational center on the Hudson River in Yonkers are just two examples of their success.

In 2022, Groundwork will create a Climate Safe Neighborhoods Task Force to help residents of the low-income area of Southwest Yonkers adapt their community for continuing climate-change threats, such as flooding, heat waves and extreme storms.  Low-income neighborhoods have been historically marginalized by past economic and social policies and are especially at risk.

Thursday Club sponsorship of Task Force efforts will help generate substantial additional support from local, state and federal sources. This, in turn, will leverage Groundwork’s impact and lead to large, sustainable climate initiatives that will have long-term health and safety benefits for children, families and all residents of Southwest Yonkers.