Today is the last day for SJC's Rain Gardens +ART fundraising effort and we could use your support to put it over the top! The Dodge Matching Funds will double your donations so DON’T LEAVE THIS MONEY ON THE TABLE PLEASE! Just a few hundred dollars can make this first project a success.

You can contribute to our efforts here: https://ioby.org/project/sjcs-rain-gardens-art-campaign

We’ve been working on SJC’s Rain Gardens +ART Campaign for some time and we are VERY grateful to the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for their support and insight into the way we are bringing awareness and education about Green Infrastructure to JC. Working with the artists who have partnered with us on this adventure has been a fabulous experience and there’s so much energy they are bringing to creating and sharing their work with the community—it’s really inspiring.

We’ve put together a great collaborative group to make this multi-project Campaign happen over the long term and we really appreciate working with astute partners like St. Paul’s, who stepped up as the first host site and learning center for the community. Thanks to the NJ Tree Foundation, who will be doing all of our installations, and to the ioby.org staff who have been amazing partners on this—their platform is an awesome tool!

Now all we need is YOU!

Thanks for giving what you can.

https://www.ioby.org/project/sjcs-rain-gardens-art-campaign

Warm regards,

Debra Italiano
Chair and Founder, Sustainable JC

PS: If you want to suggest a Rain Garden site in your neighborhood, visit our website and scroll down to the highlighted form.

The holidays are approaching and we know this time of year is calling your attention to all sorts of commitments but we hope you can hang in there with us for just one more week!  We’re in the home stretch of the campaign and have already raised enough money for the NJ Tree Foundation to install a Rain Garden up at St. Paul’s and to provide the community  education needed so the Rain Garden thrives.

The other important part of this campaign is to raise enough money to pay artists for their work in helping to revitalize the Five Corners Neighborhood.  The arts play a very important role in both education and building community and SJC has welcomed their partnership on this project.  Quality of life matters and it’s an important cultural reflection when artists work are a part of making a place better.

It’s a beautiful thing :-)

Here we introduce Laurie Riccadonna, who is one of the fabulous women helping to curate the +ART piece of our Dodge Planning Grant Award.

For more information and to donate to the campaign, please visit our ioby site at https://www.ioby.org/project/sjcs-rain-gardens-art-campaign.

Laurie Riccadonna

Curator, Dodge Grant Award for SJC’s Rain Gardens +ART Campaign

Associate Professor of Fine Art

Hudson County Community College

I became a participant in Sustainable Jersey City for a variety of reasons both personal and professional.  As an art professional and an artist, I am interested in the role that the arts play in the array of activities that SJC sponsors.  As one of the curators of their Rain Gardens +ART project, I am able to utilize my experience in art and curate exhibitions that explore issues involving the environment and community. As a thirteen year resident of Jersey City, I have been very much aware of the flooding that poses a significant risk to many residents of the city.  With our current home we discovered that the downspout on our roof drained stormwater right next to the foundation of our house, which sometimes would leak into our basement.  Since installing a rain garden and rain barrel we have not had any issues with water in our basement.  The garden has beautified our property and has eliminated this water from entering the already overburdened sewage system.  Although this is just a very small step, my family tries to make the environment around Jersey City more sustainable for our children and future generations.

We’re over the moon about the response to the Rain Gardens +ART Campaign so far!  In one week we have reached just about 30% of our total fundraising goal -- amazing!  We also had a fantastic and extremely informative feature article written about the campaign in this weekend’s Hudson Reporter.  You can check it out here.  We thank you so much for the support!

For more information and to donate to the campaign, please visit our ioby site at https://www.ioby.org/project/sjcs-rain-gardens-art-campaign.

We at SJC believe that a sustainable community is composed of a multitude of different threads woven together.  One of these important threads is Art.  We would like to introduce you to Mollie Thonneson, a prominent local JC artist and one of SJC’s key supporters of this campaign.  

“For me sustainability means connecting with and giving back to my community through art. Partnering with the SJC Rain Gardens +ART Project has allowed me to make that connection. During numerous SJC events I have enjoyed helping people create beautiful group art while playing my game TAG. This has been such a rewarding experience for me because it allows me to break out of the solitude of my usual studio work. TAGtheArtGame is an interactive activity in which groups of people work together to create one piece of abstract art. Players take turns choosing random cards that dictate what, how, and where on the canvas or paper they will be making their marks. With many people taking turns the artwork becomes increasingly more complex with beautiful layers and depth.

It is my pleasure to offer these beautiful artworks as rewards for donating generously to Sustainable Jersey City’s Rain Garden +ART Project. These artworks have been created by groups of people playing my game TAG during SJC’s various awareness raising events.”

https://www.ioby.org/project/sjcs-rain-gardens-art-campaign

Dear Friends,

We are excited to announce the launch of our Rain Garden +ART campaign!

As most of you may know, Jersey City has an aging sewer system.  Because of the current condition of the system, overflows during rainstorms release sewage tainted stormwater into rivers and the urban landscape.  Because of these overflows, Jersey City has been levied with an EPA Consent Decree for violations of the Federal Clean Water Act.
 

We at SJC believe that more green infrastructure in Jersey City will alleviate this issue substantially and lower the estimated $54 million dollar tab to repair our sewer system by at least 50%.  We also believe that we can educate and engage neighborhoods across the city about this community health issue through the Arts, and so have launched a citywide Rain Garden + ART campaign.
 

Rain gardens are a low-cost green infrastructure method that allow rainwater and snowmelt to be collected and seep naturally into the ground.  They divert water away from sewers and thereby reduce the load and the amount of sewage released into the environment.  In order to demonstrate their positive effects not only on the environment but also in the social realm by bringing community groups together, SJC has chosen an initial demonstration site of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church.
 

In addition to providing an excellent cost-saving measure for the city, the gardens will provide beautification with native plants and companion art installations located in and around the site.  Through our collaboration with community arts organizations, individual artists, the NJ Tree Foundation and our host site partners, SJC aims to show how connecting social, environmental and economic impacts can transform Jersey City into a more sustainable place to live and work.
 

In order to fund and install these gardens, SJC has partnered with the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the NJ Tree Foundation and the New York City based crowd-resourcing site, ioby.org.  As a community-based organization, our goal is to integrate the community into the fundraising and implementation process as much as possible.  The Dodge Foundation has generously awarded SJC with a grant to finance half of the project but we still need to raise the other half.  We invite you to support us in this campaign and spread the word!

For more information and to donate, our ioby site can be accessed at: https://www.ioby.org/project/sjcs-rain-gardens-art-campaign.

Warm regards,

Sustainable Jersey City

www.sustainablejc.org