Phoenix accepted a $100,000 grant on Monday from Bloomberg Philanthropies to improve the city’s energy efficiency and access to healthy foods.
The city is partnering with HandsOn Greater Phoenix and the Valley Permaculture Alliance for the two-part project, which involved painting the roofs of city-owned buildings with reflective paint and creating community gardens in three public housing communities.
Cynthia Aguilar, of the city manager’s office, said the city would paint 70,000 square feet of roofs, which would reduce energy usage in those buildings and cut down on greenhouse-gas emissions by about 60 metric tons.
“With how much energy we use here, we just think it made a lot of sense,” Aguilar said.
Ben Montclair, a principal at Ikoloji Sustainability Collaborative, said the reflective paint could reduce utility costs in the buildings in a way that is similar to adding another layer of insulation. Montclair added that although this process may not make a big difference in terms of the city’s sustainability as a whole, it raises awareness of energy-efficient practices.
“It’s moving us that much further up the sustainable learning curve,” he said. “Until that crossed people’s radar, they probably didn’t think of the difference it makes.”
For the community garden portion of the project, the city will choose three locations to set up community gardens along with a monthly series of “cooking matters” educational sessions, Aguilar said.
“It’s a whole education piece, really, to teach the community … where to access this on their own and to prepare healthy food for their families,” she said.
The gardens’ locations will depend on where the city can help the most people, Aguilar said, adding that the city is looking for areas with multi-unit housing facilities where the project can reach a minimum of 200 families.
The grant runs throughout 2013, from January through December and Aguilar said the city will start working on logistics immediately.
Phoenix was one of 18 U.S. cities to win grant money, which was funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies through Cities of Service, a bipartisan coalition of mayors dedicated to engaging citizens through volunteerism. The organization gave almost $1 million in this round of grants and will give out another $1 million in 2013.
Cities of Service’s Katie Leonberger said the grants were meant to equip cities with the tools necessary to address the challenges that they saw as important.
“The big thing for us is we know that mayors in this day and age need to use every tool available to tackle the big issues,” Leonberger said.
Mayors applied for grants by pitching how they would use the money. Other initiatives around the country focused on recycling, literacy rates, obesity and other issues.
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said in a press release that this grant would make the city more sustainable and would provide more resources to promote health in the city’s communities.
Aguilar said the grant as a whole added to the city’s civic engagement in addition to supporting Phoenix’s sustainability and health projects.
“It’s about mayors who are dedicated to getting people engaged in volunteerism,” she said.
Contact the reporter at john.l.fitzpatrick@asu.edu
