Unity Grants is thrilled to announce the 17 Anne Arundel County community groups that have received grants this Spring. Each local community group listed here has received a grant to plant a native gardening project that will build habitat, prevent flooding, and reduce runoff to the Chesapeake Bay.
Unity Gardens Spring 2022 Grant Recipients
Anne Arundel Community College
Students from AACC’s Biology and Environmental Club initiated a project to convert a decades-old English ivy bed into a pollinator garden to create a Monarch butterfly waystation.
Arnold
Anne Arundel Public Library Foundation
This grant will help protect existing native plantings surrounding the Michael E. Busch Annapolis Library from invasive species by enhancing the existing gardens with additional native plants.
Annapolis
Belvedere Elementary School
This grant will help fund a pollinator garden to increase natural habitat on the grounds as well as to create an additional outdoor area for learning. This garden will also beautify a high traffic entrance while increasing water absorption and decreasing polluted runoff to the storm drain/stream.
Arnold
Chase Creek Swim Club
A well-used path that is creating erosion problems will be replaced by a new more gradual path with native plantings to slow and spread rainwater, allowing it to soak into our soil instead of eroding the hillside.
Arnold
Chartwood Community Association
This project will provide erosion control for stormwater using sustainable native plantings while educating the local community about planting, caring for, and appreciating native plants.
Severna Park
Chelsea Beach Residents Association Playground Revitalization
A new garden will provide a positive, energizing space for members of the community to gather and play. The ative garden will also help preserve the lot from erosion as there is a creek located on the back side of the lot that flowers directly into the Magothy River.
Pasadena
Chesapeake Children’s Museum
Girl Scouts will help enrich the nature trail with native plants that will hold topsoil in place to prevent erosion around the step pools leading to the creek.
Annapolis
Colchester Community Association – Tina Russell Nickerson Memorial Garden Club (AKA “Colchester Garden Club”)
The garden club will revamp the entrance of their neighborhood. By introducing native plants, they plan to prevent erosion, support biodiversity, create a desirable environment for pollinators, suppress weeds, and eliminate the need for fertilizers and pesticides while also beautifying the area.
Severna Park
Crain West Community Association (CWCA)
This project will plant native species at the community recreation area in order to replace dead and diseased Chestnut Swamp Oak treess. By planting alternative native trees, shrubs and plants, the community hopes to ensure animal and insect habitats, maintain a future tree canopy in the recreation area, and limit neighborhood storm runoff to the nearby Bear Branch stream.
Millersville
First Baptist Church of Annapolis
The grant will replant three stormwater planters on the side of the church with native plants and introduce new planting beds that will connect the planters along that side of the church.
Annapolis
Friends of Loch Haven
This project aims to remove species overtaking a corner lot and will provide native plants that offer greater benefits to wildlife and promote biodiversity.
Edgewater
Monarch Academy Public Charter School
Students participating in Adventure and Community classes helped design and will plant the first phase of an ongoing native gardening project that will serve to restore biodiversity, buffer a waterway, as a natural learning space.
Glen Burnie
Moonflower Garden Club
The grant will be used to install native plants and shrubs to help restore two beds at the Hatton-Regester Green park along the B&A Trail in Severna Park. Both areas had invasive grasses removed, and one area has started to be used as a cut-through pathway due to the loss of vegetation.
Severna Park
North County High School
Students at North County High School participating in an Urban Agriculture program, in partnership with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Johns Hopkins Food System Lab, will incorporate a native pollinator garden into their Urban Ag initiative.
Glen Burnie
Pine Valley Homeowners Association
This grant will establish the first native plant pollinator garden on Pine Valley HOA property and provide educational signage on benefits of native plants to the community.
Arnold
Round Bay Community Association
This project will cover a sloped area where established vegetation had to be removed and will prevent runoff, provide habitat and an educational experience for the community regarding the benefit of native plants.
Severna Park
Severn Grove Improvement Association
To establish the first project of three to transform grassy community spaces into thriving, native gardens to support local wildlife, capture carbon, absorb water and provide beauty.
Annapolis
Severna Park Community Center
To replace many nonnative shrubs on the campus of the Severna Park Community Center with native shrubs that will support pollinators and birds.
Severna Park
Past Unity Gardens Grantees: