Growing a community of empowered environmental leaders in Long Branch
Since 2019, Nature Forward and our primary community partner CHEER have worked together on a series of projects connecting the Long Branch community in Silver Spring, MD (Montgomery County) with their local stream, Anacostia watershed, parks, and forests. Friends of Sligo Creek, YMCA’s Linkages to Learning Program, Rolling Terrace Elementary School, New Hampshire Estates Elementary School, Defensores de la Cuenca, Montgomery Parks and Montgomery Planning have also been partners.
Read down to learn more and get involved in this fully bilingual program. Contact [email protected] for more information.
2022-2023: “Don’t Pollute” Youth Litter Project
This project, from December 2022 – August 2023, will reduce litter in the Long Branch stream in Silver Spring, MD by training and guiding 18 high school age youth of color (outside of school) in assessing litter issues and in designing and implementing two youth led, community-centric projects to reduce litter in their community. The project will create a replicable model for empowering youth to reduce litter in their community. As part of their action project the students created and collected 70 surveys about plastic bags and litter in their local Long Branch stream. They also gave out 450 reusable bags and 108 reusable aluminum water bottles to the community. They participated in two litter pick up events where 28 trash bags and 14 recycling bags were collected.
Read more in our Don’t Pollute Project Wrap up blog post from August 2023
>>>>>> Don’t Pollute Survey Results <<<<<
2021-2022: ¡Sí Se Puede!
During 2021-2022, ten Long Branch families worked together on a solution to improve the health of Long Branch stream and park. In February 2022, the Long Branch families decided to focus their project to work with the local apartment building management to increase recycling and reduce trash/litter pick-ups.
Recycling Survey Results / Resultados de la Encuesta de Reciclaje
Between May and June 2022, project participants knocked on 36 apartment units to share recycling information and surveyed apartment dwellers to assess the recycling condition in the Long Branch community. Click on the flyer below to see the recycling survey results.
>>>>>> Si Se Puede Survey Results <<<<<
2019-2020: What Lives in Long Branch?
We began our outreach in the Long Branch community in 2019, with a project that attracted 210 community members to streamside activities such as bilingual nature walks, using our Creek Critters app to identify bugs in the stream, and going on field trips upstream and downstream in the watershed.
Thank you to our funding partners:
