Montclair Environmental Nonprofit Is Growing Strong, Founder Says

MONTCLAIR, NJ — A Montclair-based nonprofit that focuses on environmental justice and education is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds, its founder says.

Jose German-Gomez, CEO of the Northeast Earth Coalition (NEEC), recently gave an update on several achievements the group has notched lately, including new community projects, the expansion of its community food network, and social justice activism.

Here’s what German-Gomez had to say in the organization’s quarterly update.

NEW COMMUNITY PROJECTS

Our growing season started in April with the addition of two new community gardens, one in Passaic and another in Upper Montclair. The new Passaic garden replaced the old garden at St. Nicholas Church. We have 16 women participating in the garden and receiving training on growing their own food. In Montclair, the Cooper Avenue Community Garden is in partnership with Union Congregational Church, which allowed us to use an empty lot on the Church's property and partially funded the project. The garden has a deer-proof fence and has the capacity to produce 2,000 pounds of organic veggies per season. The produce is donated to Toni's Kitchen, a local food program.

EXPANSION OF OUR COMMUNITY FOOD NETWORK

Bnai Keshet Synagogue and St. Episcopal Church are now hosting two new Free Little Pantries. These additions increased the presence of our Community Food Network to 16 locations in five towns. We are projecting an annual distribution of food over 220,000 pounds for this year. The program has over 250 volunteers. We have received two grants, one from Partners for Health to support the coordination of this program and another grant from Montclair Foundation to sustain the program. We are also grateful for the support that we have received from the Helen & William Mazer Foundation.

ENVIRONMENTAL & SOCIAL JUSTICE ACTIVISM

We have had three major public speaking engagements. The topics were environmental protection and community activism (at Newark Academy); sustainable and eco-friendly garden practices (at the Montclair Public Library), and eco-friendly and sustainable community gardens (at the New Jersey Sustainability Summit.

We submitted a proposal to the township of Montclair for a new ordinance to protect native plants, and the ordinance was unanimously approved. Since the "Jose German-Gomez Native Vegetation Ordinance" was pioneer legislation, it received a lot of media attention from newspapers and TV news media. In just ten days, we were covered three times by NYC and Tri-State TV and six times by newspapers.

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE INTERNSHIPS

This new internship program provides environmental education and activism training to four young college students. We created the program in collaboration with the United Church of Christ as part of its environmental justice program working with two local UCC congregations, First Congregational Church and Union Congregational Church. Three of the interns are sponsored by the churches in collaboration with the NEEC, while the fourth is directly sponsored by the NEEC. The interns have been meeting local community leaders and elected officials, doing volunteer work in our community gardens, and visiting our environmental restoration projects. We are also giving them the opportunity to engage with other community issues.

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