! Alert

Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

Stay safe in the heat: Drink plenty of water, spend time in the shade, and visit the first aid station at Soissons Landing if you feel unwell. Click here for important warm weather visitor information.

Whole Foods Com­mu­ni­ty Giv­ing Day 112

To cel­e­brate its 5% Com­mu­ni­ty Giv­ing Day on Novem­ber 2, Whole Foods is join­ing forces with the Friends of Gov­er­nors Island and three oth­er neigh­bor­hood parks: Friends of Hud­son Riv­er Park, Brook­lyn Bridge Park Con­ser­van­cy and Mar­cus Gar­vey Park. These orga­ni­za­tions will share 5% of the day’s col­lec­tive net sales from all 10 Whole Foods stores in Man­hat­tan and Brook­lyn. Gov­er­nors Island’s share of fund­ing will be used to sup­port the devel­op­ment of our Green Zone.”

Past 5% Days have raised more than $100,000 for part­ner­ing organizations. 

What’s a green zone and why do we need one? 

Gov­er­nors Island is a ver­dant oasis and it’s grow­ing! In 2016, we opened the newest sec­tion of award-win­ning park, 40 acres of rolling hills and for­est that will reach peak matu­ri­ty in 2100. Designed to antic­i­pate cli­mate changes and sea lev­el rise for the next hun­dred years, the new park serves as a mod­el for sus­tain­able and resilient design. 

Keep­ing our land­scapes in world-class con­di­tion while apply­ing the high­est envi­ron­men­tal stan­dards requires both a robust work­force and exten­sive back-of-house capac­i­ty. Each year, thou­sands of vol­un­teers pro­vide the human pow­er we need to care for the 172-acre Island. Our new Green Zone” will increase their capac­i­ty and enable us to keep the Island’s land­scapes healthy and sus­tain­able. An out­door com­plex, vol­un­teer hub and edu­ca­tion­al resource, the Green Zone” unites exist­ing Island-wide envi­ron­men­tal ini­tia­tives such as urban farm­ing and com­post­ing togeth­er with hor­ti­cul­tur­al stewardship. 

The Green Zone” is essen­tial to advanc­ing our goal to cre­ate a closed-loop organ­ic cycle by return­ing waste to the land­scape, bring­ing us clos­er to being a Zero Waste Island.” Cen­tral­ly locat­ed near Liggett Ter­race and the Play Area, the Zone is envi­sioned to include:

  • A hor­ti­cul­tur­al lab and kitchen” for cre­at­ing liq­uid bio­log­i­cal amend­ments and com­post tea
  • A gar­den­ing oper­a­tions and train­ing center
  • Plant prop­a­ga­tion nurseries 
  • Soil blend­ing test beds
  • Sapling boot­camps to grow stronger new trees
  • The vol­un­teer hub and tool storage
  • A new pol­li­na­tor gar­den to attract more but­ter­flies, bees and oth­er pol­li­nat­ing insects to the Island

The zone forms a crit­i­cal link between these exist­ing Island pro­grams locat­ed on the Urban Farm:

  • The Teach­ing Gar­den, run by GrowNYC
  • The Com­post Learn­ing Cen­ter and organ­ic waste recy­cling, run by the NYC Com­post Project and host­ed by Earth Mat­ter
  • Shell Recy­cling Cen­ter, run by Earth Mat­ter and Bil­lion Oys­ter Project

Come out on Wednes­day, Novem­ber 2, to sup­port Gov­er­nors Island and help us build our Green Zone! While every Whole Foods in NYC and Brook­lyn is par­tic­i­pat­ing, Gov­er­nors Island staff will be greet­ing shop­pers at the Bow­ery and Union Square stores from 11am-9pm, so stop by and say hi! 15 lucky shop­pers will win free a Gov­er­nors Island tote bag.

Read the Whole Foods press release here.