We are all sustained by shared spaces, resources, and services in our communities, and everyone – individuals, community groups, organizations, and more – can help to sustain them. Our April 2025 round of Neighborhood Mini-Grants will support initiatives to grow and improve systems of food sharing, bicycle infrastructure, local plastic reuse, and community spaces in Tompkins County.
Bike Walk Tompkins offers repairs, educational programs, and many other resources for bicyclists. But their headquarters in Ithaca are less accessible for those with electric bicycles (ebikes), which are too heavy for regular bike stands to safely hold. Bike Walk Tompkins received a Neighborhood Mini-Grant to buy a heavy-duty ebike stand, for use in activities such as repair clinics and ebike maintenance/repair workshops, helping to make ebikes a more feasible local alternative to cars.
Cornell Sustainability Consultants, a student group, received a Neighborhood Mini-Grant to start a local reuse system for the plastic devices used for carrying multiple beverage cans, which are non-recyclable and usually end up as trash. The grant will fund equipment for a pilot project wherein can carriers will be dropped off at GreenStar Food Co+op by customers, cleaned, and taken for reuse by Hopshire Farm and Brewery, with the aim of eventually partnering with more businesses.
Freeville resident Kaelee Whittemore sought to share her garden’s vegetables with local passersby and drivers on Irish Settlement Road, a connection route between Dryden and Brooktondale. Kaelee received a Neighborhood Mini-Grant for materials to build a mobile, weather-resistant roadside stand offering them for pay-as-you-can, a food source available to all, from commuters picking up dinner ingredients to locals and non-locals who lack regular access to vegetables.
Loaves & Fishes of Tompkins County, a community kitchen organization that makes and serves many hundreds of free meals each week at St. John’s Episcopal Church in downtown Ithaca, received a Neighborhood Mini-Grant for materials to create a raised-bed vegetable and herb garden in the church courtyard. The garden will supply food to the kitchen serving an ever-growing need and build community for the dining guests engaged in helping to tend it.
The Spencer Road Neighborhood Association has run community roadside trash cleanups in Ithaca’s Spencer Road neighborhood since 2016, bringing neighbors together to care for their shared space and reduce pollution far beyond it. (The May 2022 cleanup is pictured above). SRNA received a Neighborhood Mini-Grant supporting outreach for upcoming cleanups.
The Varna Community Association, a nonprofit organization which offers many services and resources to the Hamlet of Varna in the Town of Dryden, received a Neighborhood Mini-Grant to make the Varna Community Center more hospitable to wildlife and bicyclists by funding a new pollinator garden and a base for a donated bike rack.
The Neighborhood Mini-Grant Program provides seed money to diverse initiatives to build environmental, economic, and social resilience and well-being in Tompkins County. The program is supported by Craig Riecke, the Park Foundation, AES Clean Energy, and local donors. The next deadline to apply for a Mini-Grant is October 1, 2025. To request an application or learn more, email sasha@sustainablefingerlakes.org.
