CURes continued its partnership with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) on a USDA Forest Service grant with the aim to increase participation in urban forestry, especially from historically underserved neighborhoods. In Phase 1 of the project (2024), we used art-based approaches and storytelling to engage residents in describing their truths, frustrations, memories, and dreams for nature in the city. We met more than 100 residents and collected story cards from 54 participants, and then incorporated those perspectives into the development of resources to guide the next phases.
In Phase 2 of the project, we conducted outreach and engagement to invite residents to two community design workshops in Fall 2025, in partnership with TNC, the Studio for Collaboration, Research and Design (SCRD) and Women of Color Outdoors (WoCO). Residents worked with landscape designers to create plans for trees in their neighborhoods and connected with Maryland funders.
Following the workshops, the team continued to provide technical assistance for participants to apply for urban forestry grants. Overall, we supported 4 community groups in submitting applications with March 2026 deadlines, and another 7 in-progress applications are anticipated to be submitted by the end of April!
Our final phase includes working with communities and state agencies to provide a toolkit that can be used by others to support Baltimore residents to engage in urban forestry and greening beyond the project end in December 2026. Our team also intends to pursue other sources of funding to support neighborhoods in implementing their green space designs.
Examples below from the urban forestry toolkit developed by Jaline McPherson from the project team.
