Mission Statement
Founded in 1982, Parkway Partners is a non-profit organization whose mission is to empower residents to improve quality of life through the preservation, maintenance and beautification of neutral grounds, green spaces, playgrounds, parks, community and schoolyard gardens and the urban forest in New Orleans.
Description
To advance its mission, Parkway Partners operates the following programs: · Adoptions, Beautification and Landscaping --Volunteers maintain neutral grounds, playgrounds, monuments and parks. Parkway Partners signs bearing the names of the volunteers are posted in impacted areas. ·
Community Gardens-- Horticultural staff partner with residents to transform blighted, vacant lots into productive vegetable gardens and attractive green space in urban areas. Parkway Partners provides seeds and cuttings, supplies and ongoing support and educational workshops for community gardeners. Since Katrina, community gardeners have reactivated 25 gardens.
Schoolyard Gardens-- Parkway Partners works with Orleans Parish public schools to plan, design and create schoolyard gardens and equips teachers to deliver a plant-based curriculum that supports academic standards for students in grades 4 through 12. Since Katrina, Parkway Partners has reestablished gardens in five Orleans Parish public schools.
Save Our Trees --Encourages citizens to protect public trees by paying to have them fertilized and sprayed for pests by Parkway Partners contractors. In the spring of 2008, more than 800 trees were sprayed for buck moth caterpillars, saving the city thousands of dollars.
Teaching Greenhouse and Second Saturday Program --Seasonal vegetables and ornamentals are grown for community, home and schoolyard gardens in the Parkway Partners' on-site greenhouse. Plant sales, one-on-one counseling by volunteer Master Gardeners and no-cost garden workshops for the general public are offered on the second Saturday of every month.
Jackson Square - Was landscaped and is maintained through the partnership of Parkway Partners and the Friends of Jackson Square.
ReLeaf New Orleans-- Parkway Partners' citywide post-Katrina reforestation project, was launched in early 2006 to address the loss of 75% of the city's trees to the storm and the floods. Since the program began, Parkway Partners and its volunteers have planted thousands of trees on public lands in the city of New Orleans.
