In October 2021, Sustainable Finger Lakes awarded the grassroots volunteer group Zero Waste Ithaca a Neighborhood Mini-Grant in support of their Bring Your Own Container (BYOC) initiative, a campaign inviting local restaurants and food vendors to offer customers the option of bringing their own reusable containers for take-out food. In November 2022, the Ithaca College…
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…
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…
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…
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.