CIVIC IMPROVEMENT

Through its involvement, fundraising, and civic engagement, the Millbrook Garden Club is committed to stimulating knowledge and love of gardening and aiding in the protection of native plants and birds. We focus on improving and protecting the quality of the environment and community by supporting projects involved in horticulture, education, research, preservation, and conservation. Over the years, through small awards, MGC has supported numerous organizations which provide programs and services in these areas.

If you are a not-for-profit organization with a  proposed project that is within 50 miles of Millbrook, New York and believe that you could qualify for a grant, please email Judith MacDonald at jrm12581@gmail.com and Marian K. Beers at mariankbeers@gmail.com with a short description of the proposed project and we will get back to you to discuss. 

If you’d like to be considered for a grant, please review the guidelines below and then fill in the attached application.

Following is a list of some of the organizations we have made award to in the past. We welcome first-time requests as well.

2024 AWARDS

1. 4H Damsels and Dragons: Ecosystems in Action
Description: In collaboration with the Educator Julie Hart of the Dutchess Land Conservancy and using the “Homegrown National Park” https://homegrownnationalpark.org framework and resources, members of the 4-H Damsels and Dragons 4-H Club will use this grant to research and create a biodiverse garden and study its impact on the ecosystem. The phases of the project will include research and identifying native plants, creating a control patch that is left wild, noting the presence of invasive species, tending the garden and comparing the difference in insect and bird life between the garden and the wild patch and producing a final report on the study. Youth will prepare a preliminary report on which they will base an educational display at the 2024 Dutchess County Fair. They will finalize the report in September 2024 and share it with interested parties.

2 . Giving Garden of the Food of Life Food Pantry
Description: The Giving Garden is a program of the Food of Life / Comida de Vida Pantry, a collaborative venture supported by churches, local community groups and individuals and sited at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, which also serves as the pantry administrator. Every Friday afternoon the Food of Life / Comida de Vida Pantry provides fresh, nutritious food to over 450 people, (each with 9 meals for the week) in Dutchess County and nearby Connecticut. Food from the Giving Garden is often their only source of fresh produce, and they receive recipes to prepare the vegetables. The recipients are working poor, unable to make ends meet on low wage or part time incomes. Immigrants and asylum seekers comprise about 60% of the neighbors served.

3. Housatonic Valley Association
Description: The Housatonic Valley Association requested funding again this year to support its 2024 internship program in anticipation of hiring another internship crew of four River Stewards. As in this past year, the Housatonic Valley Association is working to include in this opportunity young environmentalists who do not have the luxury of working for less than a living wage over the summer. It seeks to attract applicants from diverse backgrounds, different parts of the watershed, and those with multilingual skills. The interns will work weekends on the river programs from early June to Labor Day.

4. Millbrook Public Library
Description: The Friends of Millbrook Library have been working on installing a pollinator garden on the library lawn for over a year. The garden will be an educational asset for the community, a refuge for pollinators, and an aesthetically pleasing addition to the Village.The garden would serve multiple purposes. The garden would make the library lawn more inviting in an ecologically conscious way. It would also serve as an educational tool for the Millbrook Garden Club and other local organizations such as the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies, local schools, and the 4-H group that is part of Cornell Cooperative Extension.

5. North East Community Center (NECC)
Description: The NECC provides educational Community and School Gardens for the community. During the school year, NEC has a Kindergarten through 3rd Grade afterschool program during which students planted and harvested peas and salad, grew sunflower seedlings, painted garden signs, and learned about pollinators and plant varieties via scavenger hunt. Over the summer, teenagers from Webutuck and Pine Plains High Schools participated in the "Food Futures" summer internship. The Interns harvested produce from the gardens for use in the Summer Food Service Program (which provided 8,000 meals for children) and for distribution at the NECC Food Pantry (which serves 19,000 meals per month). NECC Food Programs work to prevent food waste and support community food security and work with area farms and orchards, recovering health food from local restaurant and institutional settings and incorporating unused grocery items into our weekly food pantry distribution for local households. NECC will use the 2024 grant monies for flower and vegetable seeds for the garden season, support for much needed garden bed repairs, and additional materials to improve our garden-based composting system, specifically materials and hardware for garden bin repair and additional bin construction.

6. Sharon Audubon
Description:
The Sharon Audubon will be using the MGC grant for three projects. The first project is centered on its butterfly garden and caterpillar pod, including purchasing butterfly and caterpillar specific plants and other supplies as well as replacing caterpillar enclosures. The second is the propagation of native plants by local high school students and volunteers. The plants will be sold in a plant sale at the high school or given away at an event at Sharon Audubon. Third, the grant will help defray the cost of a seasonal land and management associate and will be matched to increase the impact of the grant. The projects increase the community's understanding of the importance of native plants, butterflies, mother and caterpillars to the providing a healthy environment through plants for birds.

7. Sharon Land Trust
Description: Since 2016, the Sharon Land Trust has been offering a two-week student work project, allowing the youth of Sharon an opportunity to work on habitat and wildlife enhancement projects as well as on building and maintaining trails. The Student Work Project improves the Trust’s stewardship activities and provides valuable learning experiences to the area’s young adults, building their connection to conservation both now and in the future. The focus is on getting the students outside to contribute to the management and stewardship of the Trust’s public lands, including trail building and maintenance, invasive species control and wildlife habitat enhancement. The program runs Monday to Friday for five hours a day for two weeks. The Trust’s Grant from the Millbrook Garden Club will be used to engage local youth in the two- week student work project. The 2024 two-week project will be offered to local 8 th and 9 th graders. These students will work 5 hours a day for 10 days at the Trust's preserves. Students are paid an educational stipend for their time spent working with the Trust. The Trust believes it is important to pay the students, as it shows that their time and effort is valuable, and that conservation work is a professional career path worth exploring.

8. Sharon Hotchkiss Library
Description: The Hotchkiss Library of Sharon has just completed a $3.2 restoration of the facility. The project only included minimal landscaping and the library has begun discussion completing events and receives various grants, The requested grant was to defray the costs of perennials, shrubbery to screen mechanical equipment, two planted and a shade tree.

8. Stonewood Community Farm
Description: Stonewood Community Farm is a Market Garden that produces over 7,000 pounds of fresh produce to the working poor, seniors, disabled, immigrants and other food insecure individuals in Millbrook and surrounding community. The produce is given to the First Harvest food pantry, founded in partnership with Lyall Community Church in 2015. First Harvest is the only fresh-food pantry serving the Millbrook area. Each week, it also delivers it’s produce to the local chapter of Meals on Wheels and to various local senior citizens groups, including the Town of Dover Senior Recreation Program, because everyone has right to fresh, nutritious produce. In addition, Stonewood has just begun a food recovery program to combine produce from the Market Garden with other unused food and creative healthy prepared food for distribution to the needy in Dover Plains on a weekly basis. The requested grant will be used for the purchase of seeds, cultivation, and harvesting of produce to be distributed to those in the community who are food insecure.

2022 AWARDS

Cary Institute, Millbrook, NY

Project: Nitrogen fixation in African savanna trees study by Arielle Biro

Arielle, a fourth year PHD candidate at Yale is conducting research focused on measuring nitrogen inputs and understanding the impact of nitrogen fixation in savanna systems. Nitrogen is an essential nutrient and plays an important role in ecosystem health, agricultural yields, and climate change mitigation. Nitrogen is necessary for plant growth and photosynthesis, tightly linking nitrogen and carbon together. This tight link is important for the future of climate change, as nitrogen can determine how much carbon an ecosystem can uptake, allowing plants to act as a carbon dioxide (CO2) sink if enough nitrogen is available (Gruber and Galloway, 2008). In March 2020, Arielle collected root samples to quantify nitrogen fixation rates from over 300 trees in Kruger National Park, South Africa, one of the largest protected areas in Africa. The samples must be ground to a fine powder and analyzed at the Cary Institute, where Dr. Sarah Batterman has a specialized lab for isotopic samples. The control roots must be processed at Yale University to avoid cross-contamination.

Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County, Millbrook, NY

Project:   4-H Grows Here

4-H Grows Here brings together local children to learn about agriculture and gardening. It is hoped that COVID restrictions will ease and that in 2021 the children will be able create and nurture a community garden to provide food for the families and locals in need. In addition to gardening, youth will take part in community service activities. One planned activity is to raise money by selling pollinator seeds to buy books for ESL children of immigrant families in the community. Educational field trips include nature walks at the Cary Institute, apple picking and visits to local farms to learn about sustainable agriculture.  Through activities, and running their club, youth learn life-skills such as communication, record keeping and leadership skills. The highlight of the year will hopefully be to exhibit at the Dutchess County fair and help educate the public through demonstrations.

The Giving Garden – Food of Life Food Pantry, Amenia Union, NY

Project: Repairing the garden beds

The Giving Garden, in its sixth year, will be granted funds to repair the original beds in the food pantry’s on-site Giving Garden. This project would ensure their continued ability to provide their 321 weekly food recipients with fresh, locally grown and nutrient dense produce. The original sixteen beds were built with locally sourced cedar logs. In addition to shoring up the beds, there will be the advantage of expanding each bed’s size, which means more plants and more food!

Housatonic Valley Association, Cornwall Bridge, CT 

Project: River Stewards of Tomorrow

MGC will continue its River Stewards of Tomorrow program.  They provide the opportunities to learn water conservation stewardship to a diverse group of 6 youth. 

Innisfree, Millbrook, NY

Project: Restoration of Dumpling Knoll Daylily Bed

MGC will be providing support to restore one of Innisfree’s most widely visible areas that serves as a focal point in the garden, the Daylily Bed on Dumpling Knoll. In the 1980s, landscape architect Lester Collins planted yellow daylilies (Hemerocallis sp.). With grant support from the Millbrook Garden Club, Innisfree Foundation will be able to rejuvenate the existing planting bed and purchase many additional daylilies to restore the lush feeling and bold look of this cup garden. The new varieties will be selected for beauty of form, harmonious color, and to significantly extend the flowering season. 

North East Community Center, Millerton, NY

Project:  Community and School Gardens  

This grant supports the gardens at both NECC and the Webutuck High School which are such wonderful, important programs for NECC. They serve as an educational tool for Teens and the community garden has become a popular staple along the Rail Trail. The produce from both gardens has also been used in our summer meals program serving over 100 area children daily. The collaboration among staff, volunteers, and interns is the perfect example of how NECC works within the community.  

Sharon Audubon, Sharon, CT

Project: Self-guiding Paths at Sharon Audubon: For Exploring, Connecting, and Inspiring Action 

The Sharon Audubon will be enriching their visitor experience with support of MGC.  This will include new signage and other features which will extend a welcome to all, allow self-guided exploration, and invite visitor participation via written comments, uploaded observations and photos, or conservation actions. 

Wethersfield, Amenia, NY

Project: Wethersfield Horticulture Intern

MGC will continue to support Wethersfield’s internship program under the guidance of Director of Horticulture, Toshi Yano.  The interns will learn how to propagate plants from seeds and cuttings, how to properly plant, weed, stake, deadhead and feed a garden bed, and how to make basic pruning cuts. He will go over basic plant morphology and metabolism, binomial nomenclature, and plant classification. 

CIVIC IMPROVEMENT
MGC has supported numerous worthy organizations over many years and welcomes first-time requests as well.

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