Do you have an idea for a project to make our community more sustainable, resilient, or inclusive? Need a little help in covering the costs? Sustainable Finger Lakes is accepting applications for our spring/summer 2023 round of Neighborhood Mini-Grants. The Sustainable Finger Lakes Neighborhood Mini-Grant program supports initiatives improving environmental sustainability, equity, and environmental, economic, and…
An individual, tapping into a global project, can help a neighborhood. The organization Little Free Library coordinates an international network of citizen-made cabinets where anyone can take or leave books, improving equitable access to books while reducing the purchasing and disposal of books. Ithaca hosts a growing number of these Little Free Libraries (LFLs). In…
Do you have an idea for a project to make our community more sustainable, resilient, or inclusive? Need a little help in covering the costs? Sustainable Finger Lakes is accepting applications for our fall 2022/winter 2023 round of Neighborhood Mini-Grants. The Sustainable Finger Lakes Neighborhood Mini-Grant program supports initiatives improving environmental sustainability, equity, and environmental, economic,…
As the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated unequal access to food across the nation, communities have worked to address this long-term problem. Tompkins and Cortland Counties now host many urban and rural food sharing cabinets, maintained and stocked by locals and coordinated by mutual aid networks. Only a few of those sites are equipped with refrigerators or…
Individuals and small groups can start projects that make a big difference in their community, but some ideas need to be tested before gaining widespread support. In April 2022, Sustainable Finger Lakes (formerly Sustainable Tompkins) awarded $2,475 in seven Neighborhood Mini-Grants to individuals and small organizations in Tompkins County, for new initiatives with the potential…
Neighborhood gardens bring people of different backgrounds and values together to share in the production and harvest of food close to home, and a network of them is growing in Ithaca. In 2021, the Ithaca Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)created a neighborhood garden of raised beds bordering the sidewalks along the Friends…
We were glad to attend this great gathering on November 18th to dedicate the first bike repair station in downtown Ithaca – funded by our Neighborhood Mini-Grant Program!! Biking brings business to downtowns and providing this kind of infrastructure enables all sorts of residents to own and use their bikes regularly. Our team was glad…
Flowing through forested gorges and farmland, winding through the City of Ithaca to Cayuga Lake, Six Mile Creek is the city’s water supply and a part of home for people in diverse communities. Titus Triangle Park in Ithaca’s Southside now hosts an observation board celebrating the creek and those who live along it, created as a collaborative project led by Southside resident Adrianna Hirtler and supported by a Neighborhood Mini-Grant from Sustainable Tompkins.
Tools and materials to start a permanent program of instruction in machine sewing at A Place to Stay, their transitional supportive residence for homeless and recovering women in Ithaca.
Three “Women at the Wheel” bicycle repair workshops at the Ithaca Farmers Market pavilion in summer 2021, open to women and non-binary residents of Tompkins County.
Partial costs of purchasing a self-serve bicycle repair station in downtown Ithaca, equipped with tools, an air pump, and a stand.
An interactive observation board beside Six Mile Creek in Titus Triangle Park, to be used by park visitors to record observations of the creek and its wildlife, local cultural stories, and other messages that build environmental awareness and community connections.
Tompkins County contains a wealth of trails, but some have fallen into disrepair and disuse without the care they need. A wooded trail in the Town of Dryden, between the Varna Community Center and the adjacent Hillside Acres Mobile Home Park, went many years without maintenance and became overgrown to the point of near-impassability. In…
Effective local action to address climate change requires a populace to understand the complex science and social dimensions of this global threat. To this end, the Ithaca-based Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) created The Teacher-Friendly Guide™ to Climate Change and is engaged in an ongoing effort to distribute it to all high school science teachers in the United States, countering…
Sometimes a small investment can have a large impact on an organization or business’s operations, raising efficiency while reducing environmental impacts. The Family Reading Partnership, a Danby-based organization devoted to distributing children’s books throughout Tompkins County, has long taken its recyclables to the Tompkins County Recycling and Solid Waste Center, a 14-mile round trip made by…