Mission

We are The Bronx is Blooming, a Bronx-based nonprofit dedicated to environmental stewardship, youth leadership development, and community building.

At The Bronx is Blooming (BiB), our mission is to grow and support a culture of environmental stewardship in the Bronx. BiB inspires communities to advocate for their parkland as well as promote civic engagement, youth development, and community building.

The Bronx is Blooming trains local youth to lead volunteer projects in Bronx parks. Our programs allow Bronx residents to drive change in their neighborhoods. We work to cultivate a community of protectors of natural resources in the Bronx.

Since our founding in 2011, we have accomplished a lot of positive change. With the help of our amazing supporters and partners, we have provided training and seasonal jobs to 480+ Bronx youth, who together with 24,000+ volunteers dedicated 175,000+ hours of service and stewarded 20,000+ trees at 20+ parks and green spaces throughout the Bronx. It would take more than six parks' staff’s full-time work each year to match our time commitment.

To learn how you can get involved, click here.

Why We Do It

While the Bronx is 24% parkland, more than any other borough, much is consolidated in some large parks on the periphery of the borough, which are difficult to access for many Bronx residents. With a focus on smaller neighborhood parks, The Bronx is Blooming’s projects create more opportunities for communities to spend time in nature, including coming out to help revitalize their neighborhood parks.

Our projects not only help community residents to take direct action in their parks – as the stewards of young trees, the combatants of water pollution (through helping our open space absorb more rainwater), and the planters and caretakers of new native gardens - but by beautifying and increasing exposure to neighborhood green space, we encourage regular park usage and physical activity.

Air pollution is an exacerbating factor for asthma, a critical and urgent issue in the Bronx, a borough with the highest asthma rates in the state, 43.5 asthma-related deaths per million residents in the Bronx, compared with the state average of 13.1 deaths per million (New York Environmental Report). Our work in community-driven horticulture is particularly suited to reducing air pollution, as many small steps (new plantings, park and street tree stewardship) can significantly enhance a community’s air quality. A mature tree absorbs more than 48 pounds of carbon monoxide each year and gives off oxygen (ArborDay).  Through the stewardship of 1,200 trees each year, 1,800 volunteers contribute to a denser, healthier canopy in our parks and on our streets for generations to come. As our members protect, mulch, and prune our trees, they learn that these trees give back, by filtering pollutants, lowering summer temperatures, and breathing life into their communities. 

We offer weekend community events, school service day partnerships, company team-building days, and University programming to connect students from different local colleges to one another and our work. Our work promotes an ethic of shared responsibility, spreading the message of how each community member can create change in their own environments, backyards, and tree-pits, and have fun while they are achieving these results.