In celebration of Earth Week, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Amanda Lefton today announced approximately $6 million in Environmental Justice Community Impact Grants to 32 community-based organizations to help improve the well-being of those most vulnerable to climate and pollution impacts. The grants support projects addressing environmental issues, harms, and health hazards, build community consensus, set priorities, and improve public outreach and education. In addition to the awards announced today, $7 million in new funding is now available for qualifying applicants to build upon the progress being made to create a more healthy, equitable future.
“For two decades, DEC’s Environmental Justice grant programs have delivered real outcomes in support of a healthier, more sustainable future for people all across New York,” Commissioner Lefton said. “The awards we are announcing today, through Governor Hochul leadership, support organizations that are working tirelessly to lift up their communities and advance an environmental justice. We look forward to many more years of providing necessary resources to grantees and their partners to improve environmental outcomes across the state.”
Celebrating 20 years of grantmaking, DEC’s Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) awarded a total of more than $25 million in funding for 289 projects since 2006. Approximately $17 million to date supported the successful Community Impact Grant program and the hundreds of projects that are prioritizing the disproportionate health, safety, and economic burdens of the state’s most disadvantaged communities. This week DEC made a record $7 million available to support the next round of applicants. For full details about the grant opportunity, including project eligibility requirements, scoring criteria, and informative webinar details, please visit DEC’s website.
The most recent round of Community Impact Grants included $6 million for 32 projects. The most recent awardees are listed below.
Long Island
Friends of Science East Inc. $200,000: Empowering Environmental Innovation through Education. The project will build a transformative education center at Wardenclyffe to inspire exploration, sustainability, and STEM learning, preserving Nikola Tesla's legacy while empowering disadvantaged communities with innovative environmental and green energy programs.
Unkechaug Nation Community Care $200,000: Roots of Resilience. This project will restore 52 acres of Unkechaug land through native plant revival, water protection, and Indigenous wellness to strengthen ecological health and community healing.
New York City
Fort Greene Park Conservancy Inc. $200,000: Green Team. The Green Team is a year-round program that offers teens paid, hands-on training, youth-led research, and mentorship, culminating in green infrastructure projects that implement solutions to environmental challenges in Fort Greene Park.
Gowanus Canal Conservancy Inc. $200,000: Strengthening Stewards: Expanding K-12 Student and Teacher Environmental Education in Gowanus. Gowanus Canal Conservancy will expand its K-12 Environmental Education Programs, enhancing access for underserved students in Brooklyn, through hands-on learning, teacher training, and a new all-season classroom, fostering future environmental stewards.
Human Impacts Institute $200,000: Creative Climate Communications Lab x Voices for Change. The Creative Climate Communications Lab x Voices for Change inspires climate action in Brooklyn by using creative communication, cultural storytelling, social norms, and trusted local voices to overcome information biases and make climate solutions more relatable and accessible.
Isabahlia Ladies of Elegance Foundation $165,000: Protecting Lives and Nurturing Tomorrow for New York City Residents (PLANT Impact): Powell Garden Pavilion Impact in Brownsville. Isabahlia Ladies of Elegance Foundation will build a 2,000-sqft solar-paneled pavilion in Brownsville, Brooklyn, to provide year-round urban farming, food education, and resilient indoor space for youth and elders in a high-poverty, food-insecure area.
Loisaida Inc. $200,000: Mobilization for a Healthy Indoors. Mobilization for a Healthy Indoors aims to improve air quality and avoid associated health risks in New York City’s Lower East Side by training and empowering residents to understand, monitor, and identify hazards, both inside and outside their homes.
Neighbors Helping Neighbors Inc. $194,736: Healthy Homes, Healthy Families. The project will help identify and address indoor air quality issues and improve related health outcomes for tenants in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.
Outstanding Renewal Enterprises Inc. $100,000: Continuing Horticulture Training for Youth Program. The program will employ local youth to care for neighborhood green spaces and conduct yard waste research, gathering data to guide the design and operation of a future compost site at East River Park.
The Bronx is Blooming $200,000: Grow, Revitalize, Engage, Educate, Nurture (GREEN): Building Capacity for Consistent Environmental Stewardship in Bronx Parks and Green Spaces. The Bronx is Blooming will expand GREEN, its community engagement, environmental education, and stewardship program to deliver more consistent care for green spaces, build community capacity, train youth leaders, and improve environmental health.
Van Cortlandt Park Alliance $200,000: Lots of Volunteer Effort in VCP (LOVE VCP). VCPA's LOVE VCP project has four parts: stewardship events, weekly volunteer crews, training "Vital Volunteers" who adopt park areas, and citizen science using iNaturalist to track plant species and support restoration of natural areas across the park.
We Stay/Nos Quedamos Inc. $200,000: Rooted in Self Determination - Cumulative Impacts of Environmental Public Health Education and Community Programming. This project is a multi-year capacity-building and research initiative assessing how youth-led environmental justice programming advances community self-determination in Melrose Commons.
Hudson Valley
Energy Justice Law and Policy Center $200,000: New Rochelle Youth Green Infrastructure Training Program and Nature Based Solutions Pilot. The center will train 60 New Rochelle youth (16-25) with paid opportunities to design, install, and steward street trees and modular rain garden sites in disadvantaged communities, reducing flooding and heat, creating youth stewards, building green jobs skills, and creating a replicable nature-based solutions model.
Fareground Community Kitchen $100,000: From Waste to Nourishment: Listening, Learning, and Sharing Food in Beacon. Fareground will conduct a community survey, food waste education, and public events at its Beacon engagement sites, while expanding food rescue and composting to reduce waste, improve food access, and support community and environmental health.
Groundwork Hudson Valley $198,838: The Orchard Street Open Space Improvement and Climate Risk Mitigation Initiative. A small garden on a vacant lot owned by Groundwork Hudson Valley in a highly underserved area of Southwest Yonkers will be the base for community research, outreach programs, and demonstration projects to increase access to open space and reduce climate risks.
Newburgh Urban Farm and Food Inc. $173,705: Seeds of Resilience: Climate Solutions at Downing Park Urban Farm. The project will expand food access and climate resilience in Newburgh by building a year-round greenhouse, remediating urban soils, and training the next generation of urban farmers through a paid internship program.
Outdoor Promise Inc. $200,000: Breathe Newburgh: Building Community Power Through Air Quality Research and Bilingual Storytelling. Outdoor Promise will expand air quality monitoring in Newburgh's Environmental Justice neighborhoods and build lasting bilingual media capacity to share timely, culturally relevant environmental health information that empowers community action.
Poughkeepsie Farm Project $200,000: Poughkeepsie Earth Cycle Project. The project will turn food waste into compost to nourish City of Poughkeepsie gardens, support youth jobs, and promote environmental justice through education, community engagement, and increased access to fresh, local food.
Capital District
Friends of Hudson Youth Inc. $200,000: Oakdale Lake Water Quality Improvement Project. Phase III of the Oakdale Lake Project will advance long-term water quality improvements and community science to reduce phosphorus and support safe, equitable access to this vital public resource.
Media Alliance Inc. $200,000: Rooting and Growing Urban Climate Resilience at the Sanctuary. The project supports Media Alliance staff to increase outreach and education around new infrastructure projects across our campus, integrating community, biology, health, art, and land-tending initiatives.
Radix Ecological Sustainability Center $200,000: Albany Biocultural Diversity and Equity Project. Radix will develop a guide to biodiversity/biocultural diversity restoration in environmental justice communities, focusing on strategies and protocols for community involvement in the management and restoration of vacant spaces.
Mohawk Valley
The Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties $200,000: THRIVE: (To Heal and Revitalize an Innovative Vibrant Economy) Greenprint Roots. This project will be a community-first environmental education program, built on engagement, seeking to improve the health and well-being of the Cornhill community’s residents by addressing the environmental and social toxin issues through education, community engagement activities, and intergenerational teamwork.
Central New York
Atlantic States Legal Foundation Inc. $130,987: Growing community-driven resilience: Urban forestry, restoration, and food forests in Fulton, NY. The project will greatly enhance and build urban forestry and greening efforts in Fulton through installing a public tree nursery, planting a food forest, restoring habitat and views in a park, and various forms of outreach and education including a student forest and garden intern program. These efforts will help mitigate past environmental harms in the Fulton area.
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Cortland $200,000: Blocks in Bloom. Blocks in Bloom will plant front yard flower, pollinator, and/or vegetable gardens on 20 Cortland downtown blocks to reduce heat, improve soil health, boost pollinators, and strengthen community bonds.
Southern Tier
Center for Community Transportation Inc. $196,908: Connecting Health and Mobility: Evaluating the Public Health Impacts of Micro-Mobility and Multi-Modal Transit in Tompkins County. The Center for Community Transportation (Ithaca Carshare, Bikeshare & BikeWalk Tompkins), in collaboration with Cornell Cooperative Extension, is researching how micro-mobility and multi-modal transit options benefit public health in Tompkins County.
Volunteers Improving Neighborhood $200,000: Expanding Access to Urban Gardening in Food Deserts. This project will construct two new community gardens in Greater Binghamton, maintain and expand existing community gardens, address lead soil in home gardening for New Americans, and boost educational programming for healthier communities.
Finger Lakes
Rochester Refugee Resettlement Services $180,271: Improving Air Quality in Multifamily, Refugee Dwelling Kitchens in Rochester's 14,613 Environmental Justice Neighborhoods. This project will perform seven days of continuous air quality monitoring of 100 kitchens in rental properties housing refugee and asylum-seeking families within zip code 14613.
Western New York
Clean Air Coalition of Western New York $198,945: Buffalo Neighborhood Hubs Project (BNHP). This project will increase resiliency in Buffalo by developing neighborhood hubs to train residents with disaster preparedness and pollution prevention skills and connect residents with weatherization upgrades, workforce training, and outdoor air monitoring.
Fillmore Forward Inc. $200,000: Roots to Rise: Cultivating Food, Finance & Futures in East Buffalo. Roots to Rise is a community-led effort to transform neglected space into an inclusive garden that fosters health, connection, and opportunity advancing public health, food access, and resilience in East Buffalo.
Massachusetts Avenue Project Inc. $184,500: Buffalo Food Justice Project. The Buffalo Food Justice Project will expand healthy food access, create 120 youth jobs in sustainable agriculture, and promote safe soil, water, and urban growing practices while advocating for municipal policies supporting climate and food justice.
North Tonawanda Botanical Garden $198,119: North Tonawanda Botanical Garden Organization Native Plant/Habitat Restoration and Grant Writing Capacity Building Project. North Tonawanda Botanical Garden Organization is restoring Botanical Garden lawn area to native plant communities, requiring intern support for site-specific propagation and planting. Growing NTBGO's capacity leverages funds for education, restoration, and propagation in the greenhouse.
Providence Farm Collective Corp. $199,862: Empowering Community Organization Farms for Fresh Food Access. Providence Farm Collective will offer farmland access and training to farmers from Disadvantaged Communities in Buffalo. This project will support Community Organization Farms for 150 farmers to meet the demand for farmland and fresh food access in Western New York.
About DEC’s Office of Environmental Justice
DEC supports a wide variety of projects including environmental education for residents to bring the community together and learn. OEJ has also funded green jobs training that prepares youth to enter the green jobs economy. Projects that focus on habitat restoration have restored biodiversity and created green and blue spaces that communities can access free of pollution. DEC has also sponsored air monitoring and pollution mitigation projects that provide data that is used to make policy decisions for New York.
To see the full list of historical OEJ funded projects, please visit Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) Grant Awards: Beginning 2006 | State of New York
Funding for DEC’s Community Impact Grant program is provided by the State's Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), a critical resource for environmental programs such as environmental justice, land acquisition, farmland protection, invasive species prevention and eradication, recreation access, and water quality improvement projects. For the 2026–27 fiscal year, Governor Hochul's Executive Budget once again sustains the EPF at the historic funding level of $425 million.
For more information about DEC’s Environmental Justice Grant Programs, please visit DEC’s website.
