Connections and Partnerships

How Newark’s Green Future Summit Drew On Collective Strength

The Apollo Alliance was founded on the idea that the most effective way of tackling our energy challenges and preparing for a sustainable future is to forge coalitions that draw on collective strengths. Our work to foster green-collar jobs often leads to ongoing connections among community, government, business, and labor groups, and to new and exciting projects on the ground.

In this spirit, some of the most important results of the working group process and the Green Future Summit were the connections made between Newark organizations:

  • Through the working group process, three local organizations and the City of Newark joined forces to create the Park Works Program, a pilot green jobs project for Newark high school-age youth. After the February working group meeting, the City of Newark’s Philanthropic Liaison and the Director of Prisoner Re-entry sprung into action and connected Project U.S.E. (Urban Suburban Environments), a non-profit devoted to environmental training for urban youth, with The Trust for Public Land (TPL) – and in turn with TPL’s working partnership with the Mildred Helms Park Resurrection Committee. The new partners teamed up with Newark Works, the city’s summer youth employment program, to create a six-week course offering character development, horticultural skills training, and paid work in seasonal park maintenance at the 3.3-acre Mildred Helms Park. The Greater Newark Conservancy contributed their significant expertise in environmental education. The first course concluded in August 2008; the partners hope to introduce the program to other Newark parks in 2009.

  • The Weequahic Park Super Neighborhood is partnering with Brick City Urban Farms, EarthBox (a garden container manufacturer), and the Prudential Center to create an urban farm (pictured above) on a city-owned vacant lot adjacent to the historic Weequahic Park. This partnership developed at the summit’s Green Open Space working group session, where Weequahic Park Super Neighborhood Council Chair Brenda Toyloy discussed opportunities for urban farming with EarthBox’s Education Director Molly Philbin and Brick City Urban Farms founder “Farmer” John Taylor. This project is part of a larger community vision to reclaim vacant city-owned lots and develop them into a network of neighborhood organic farms.

  • One highlight was the post-summit green business workshop presented by the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) and the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia. During this session the speakers facilitated a brainstorming session on what a sustainable business network might look like in Newark and offered their assistance in building such a network. The BALLE presentation gave rise to some innovative ideas, including strengthening local businesses by encouraging business-to-business purchasing, inserting pollution prevention principles into business development assistance, expanding the existing “Fresh Foods Initiative,” which aims to expand the availability of fresh foods in the “food deserts” that exist in several of Newark’s neighborhoods, and using the city’s “Buy Local Guide” to help residents connect to sustainable businesses throughout the city. At the session a representative from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation also offered to sponsor interested Newark residents at the 2008 Social Venture Institute in Philadelphia, the East Coast’s largest gathering of “triple bottom line” businesses.

    • For more information

    Imagining Newark's Green Future

    Download the PDF

    Imagining Newark’s Green Future

    Newark’s Green Future Envisioned During Summit

    People Making It Happen In Newark

    Working Group Priorities and Action Items

    Resources and Appendices

    Big Ideas In Useful Pictures; Newark Graphic Facilitation

    Green Future Summit Media Coverage

  • The New Jersey Environmental Federation’s Newark-based Urban Environmental Institute (UEI) made a connection with a solar expert from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, resulting in a new Solar Panel Energy Savings & Training Project. The project is designed to increase Newark’s solar infrastructure and use solar energy to help large schools, churches, and businesses reduce their electric bills by up to 75 percent. In its initial stages, the project will offer ten Newark residents training and certification in solar panel installation. Graduates will be eligible to take an apprenticeship program test with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 164 and, if they pass, they will be connected with a union electrician from LB Electric Company, who will act as an apprenticeship sponsor.

  • The week after the summit, in honor of Green For All’s National Day of Action for green-collar jobs, Newark’s sustainability officer and the director of Newark Works convened a Green Workforce Development meeting of organizations and businesses that are already doing green job training or are interested in becoming training partners. Meeting attendees established a Green Jobs Coordinating Committee, identified green job growth areas, and recommended specific city actions. That same day the Urban Environmental Institute and Green Building Solutions joined South Ward Councilman Oscar James II in organizing another exciting Day of Action event, where a new Newark business trained local members of Saving Our Selves, a gang intervention and prevention organization, to install a reflective “cool” roof on a Newark building.

  • Newark-based sisters Pamela Johnson and Nina Pilar were so inspired by their attendance at Newark’s Green Future Summit that they merged their writing and graphic design skills to form Brickerati Green, a public relations firm that is helping document environmental best practices to inspire action.

  • Through the summit process, Winnie Fatton of the Municipal Land Use Center connected with the Sustainability Officer to collaborate on the Center’s initiative to develop Green Career Tracks in Newark’s Vocational Technology High Schools.

  • Inspired by the summit, NJIT professor Jay Kapraff offered to host follow-up Green Future Forums to support the city and community organizations as they move forward on the draft Green Future plan. In addition to connecting the city to the New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS), NJIT opened an informative sustainable technologies lecture series to the working groups, and hosted a luncheon that brought together community organizations and university faculty to identify “town-gown” opportunities to advance Newark’s green future.

  • The City of Newark will soon announce the creation of a new environmental commission chaired by Kim Thompson-Gaddy, leader of the Green Economic Development working group. Many of the potential members of the commission were heavily involved in the summit and working group process. Working group priorities and action items are likely to inform the commission’s recommendations. The commission will work closely with sustainability officer Chelsea Albucher in developing the city’s sustainability plan, which is also expected to draw heavily on the themes of the summit.

  • Following through on an idea that germinated at the summit, The Laborers International Union Eastern Region, The Garden State Alliance for a New Economy, and the City of Newark are partnering on a green-collar job training initiative. The six week program, taught by Laborers Local 55, will train twenty-five workers in green construction skills and put them to work weatherizing thirty homes belonging to seniors and low-income residents. Participants will receive union wages and benefits for their work as well as accreditation upon graduation.