April 14, 2016
Every year the NY4P Daffodil Breakfast honors individuals and organizations from across all five boroughs that make the Daffodil Project a success. This year we're celebrating the 15th anniversary of the Project, and the planting of over 6 million bulbs in every corner of the city! This past fall NYC celebrated the planting of its millionth tree through the MillionTreesNYC initiative. To celebrate this milestone, this year we are recognizing New Yorkers who use the Daffodil Project as a resource for maintaining their street trees and tree pits. Read more to learn about the 2016 honorees, and find out how your support helps the Daffodil Project continue to bloom across New York City.
2016 Lynden B. Miller Citywide Daffodil Award Recipient
Trees New York
Trees New York was founded in 1976 as a volunteer response to New York City’s cutbacks in forestry and tree-related community services. For 40 years Trees New York has worked to plant, preserve and protect New York City’s trees through education and community participation. Through our signature program, the Citizen Pruner Course, Trees New York has trained over 11,500 volunteers to care for our urban forest. They are extremely proud to be celebrating their 40th Anniversary this year. Trees New York has participated in the Daffodil Project since it began in 2001, planting thousands of bulbs in street tree pits throughout the city.
BRONX
Petrona Smith, Boller Avenue Resident Tree Lovers
As an active member of her local Community Board’s Sanitation Committee, Ms. Smith became interested in caring for the tree pits on her block after realizing they were becoming magnets for litter and other refuse. In 2014, Ms. Smith learned about the Daffodil Project, and distributed the bulbs she received to her neighbors and local business owners as a way to encourage the community to become active stewards of the local street trees. Since then, her efforts have resulted in thousands of daffodils blooming along her residential block, as well as the business corridor nearby.
BROOKLYN
The Prospect Heights Street Tree Task Force (PHSTTF)
Started by a graduate of the Trees New York Citizen Pruner program, the PHSTTF became a local effort to improve the health and conditions of street trees throughout the Prospect Heights community. The planting of Daffodil Project bulbs has been a component of the Task Force’s service projects since it started in 2009, offering a way to both improve the soil health of tree pits, and beautify them each spring. In recent years, PHSTTF has expanded their efforts further into Crown Heights, and also begun to offer educational workshops to neighbors about street tree care and stewardship.
MANHATTAN
The Chelsea Garden Club
When the city installed a protected bike lane along Eighth Avenue in 2010, multiple street trees were incorporated along the block. Realizing these tree pits needed stewardship and beautification, the Chelsea Garden Club was born. Community members have used Daffodil Project bulbs as a way to provide spring beautification, and their efforts also include the planting of pollinator-friendly plants and flowers that bloom in the warmer months. Their network of volunteers has expanded to adopt the bike lane pits along Eight and Ninth Avenues, from 17th to 30th Streets.
QUEENS
The Jackson Heights Beautification Group (JHBG)
In 1989, the Jackson Heights Beautification Group began as a community-led effort to beautify the neighborhood, and advocate for the parks and gardens of the neighborhood. Jackson Heights has one of the lowest ratios of open space per resident in the entire city, making the volunteer efforts of the JHBG vital to the improvement and increased accessibility of what little parkland there is to serve this incredibly diverse community. In addition to stewarding the main local open space, Travers Park, the JHBG saw the need to expand into street tree care. In neighborhoods as park-poor as Jackson Heights, street trees provide valuable green space, and their efforts have led to beautified, well-tended street trees throughout the community.
STATEN ISLAND
H.E.A.L.T.H. for Youths
H.E.A.L.T.H for Youths, Inc. is a nonprofit formed for the charitable and educational purposes of assisting youth in New York City. They strive to combat community deterioration and juvenile delinquency, improve the quality of education, health care and life-skills training offered to adolescence and young adults. While they work citywide, they have focused their primary efforts in the North Shore of Staten Island. After identifying a need to get young people in the neighborhood positively engaged with parks and open space, the organization partnered with Councilmember Debi Rose to do a long-term tree stewardship project in St. George, Staten Island that also involved planting daffodils in and around tree beds. Since 2013, they have planted thousands of daffodils with local teens and member of the local NYPD Precinct.
The Daffodil Project is made possible by the generous support of people like you. Find out how you can support the work of NY4P, and sponsor a bulb honor of a friend, family member, or community organization.