Yonkers LCN, NY

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Number of gardens involved

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Yonkers LCN, NY

The Local Carbon Network comprises 12 community gardens run by the Yonkers YMCA, including 3 schools.

At the beginning of the 2022 growing season, with the help of a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant, the Yonkers LCN began distributing Jora Compost Tumblers along with an ongoing supply of biochar to each of the 12 community gardens spread around the city of Yonkers, New York. An incorporated city on the East bank of the Hudson River just north of New York City, adjoining The Bronx. Sometimes called the Sixth Borough, Yonkers is third largest city in NY state, and has become a thriving and diverse community. 

Supported for many years by HUD Community Redevelopment Grants, the Yonkers Community Garden program has served HUD’s goal of rehabilitating blighted urban properties by helping to address food insecurity and to improve the availability of high quality and nutritious food choices. In July 2021, the administration of all 13 of these very active garden communities, with their hundreds of stakeholders, was taken over by the Yonkers YMCA. 

Each of the gardens is receiving support from the Yonkers LCN, which is working with the YMCA’s administrators and the leadership and individual gardeners at each location to help them develop co-composting programs to improve the yield of these vital urban agriculture sites, and help improve their potential for carbon removal.

APL, as part of the SBIR grant, is placing a dual PP30 containerized microgrid system at the site of an old coal-fired power plant, The Plant, that is being developed into a climate-action center. Gasifier operations at The Plant will form the hub of the Yonkers LCN and supply the biochar needed for the gardens’ composting program.

Three of the gardens are located on local school campuses, making education an obvious priority for the program. Part of the SBIR grant is also aimed at curriculum development, so the LCN is partnering with the YMCA to expand the range of their educational outreach to include more focus on regenerative agriculture and its potential for carbon drawdown and removal.

The Yonkers LCN focusses on schools and low income families.

The nodes of the Yonkers Local Carbon Network are:

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  • Ashburton Community Garden- (Fonzo’s Garden)-198 Ashburton Avenue.
  • Bernie’s Garden-  21 Park Avenue.
  • Eugenio Maria de Hostos Community Garden- 75 Morris Street.
  • Henry Rivera Community Garden  at the Greenway Park- Wolfe Street 2018
  • Max & Braun Community Garden- 94 Woodworth Avenue.
  • Montessori School 27 Community Garden- 132 Valentine Avenue.
  • Oak (Cristal) Street Community Garden- 128 Oak Street.
  • St Peter’s Day Care Community Garden- 204 Hawthorne Avenue.
  • Stanley Avenue “Tansey” Park Community Garden- 175- 181 Stanley Avenue.
  • Steve Whetestone Community Garden – 181 Buena Vista Avenue.
  • The Old Buena Vista Avenue Community Garden – 81-85 Buena Vista Avenue.
  • Walnut Community Garden/ Old Croton Aqueduct (Managed for Groundwork Hudson Valley).
  • Wicker Community Garden- 312 Warburton Avenue.