Emeryville Children & Nature - Current ECN Projects

Current ECN Projects

2024-25 Emeryville Community Grant Project

The current funding ECN has received from the Emeryville Community Grant program is for a nature pop-up series to be held at Emeryville parks and community gardens. There will be a fall series of pop-ups starting in August and running through November. A spring series will beging in February and go through June. Pop-ups will include Create-with-Nature, a mobile Nature Exploration Area, and guest organizations providing nature programs and activities.

Nature Everywhere Initiative

Emeryville is now a Nature Everywhere Accelerator Community! The Emeryville Nature Everywhere Team is led by ECN, and includes Emery Unified School District, Emeryville Child Development Center, Emeryville Youth Services, and our local Head Start, Ralph Hawley. Read more about it here.

Stanford Park Nature Exploration Area Pilot

The Emeryville Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee has voted in favor of a recommendation to city council that they approve a pilot Nature Exploration Area (NEA) at Stanford Park. The proposed NEA has been developed by ECN and is currently being reviewed by the Community Services and Public Works departments and an agreement to proceed with the project is anticipated.

Nature Mobile

ECN has been awarded a $2,000 grant from Ava Energy to convert a trailer into a Nature Mobile! This will streamline our pop-up events and allow us to reach more kids, families, schools, and communities.

We also continue to support the Emeryville Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee in their related efforts to:

1) advise the City of Emeryville Public Works Department on nature exploration options at Eastshore Park for the multi-agency bioswale project that is currently in the design phase

2) encourage the city to apply for nature and green infrastructure grants (including those to assist with funding urban greening parks projects in the CIP) and potentially meet with Bay Tree Design regarding the grant research they have voluntarily conducted for Emeryville

3) encourage the city to prioritize and begin one of the urban greening parks projects in the CIP

4) advocate for Emeryville parks as essential infrastructure as major contributors to community health and environmental health

A Create-with-Nature kit was donated to ECCL in April, 2024 as part of ECN's Community Grant Project

Recently Completed Projects

2023-24 Emeryville Community Grant Project

In April 2024 we completed our project funded by our 2023-24 Emeryville Community Grant award. Emeryville Children & Nature was officially launched, and we began creating a network with local gardens, arborists, nurseries, nature shops, other cities' children and nature programs, other related organizations, and design firms specializing in nature exploration areas and nature playgrounds. We prepared a large Create-with-Nature kit and donated it to the Emeryville Center for Community Life (ECCL) to be used in their after school programs and by the adjacent school district and local preschools. ECN also used the kit to host our first official Nature Pop-up at the Emeryville Healthy Families Festival.

ECN provided Emeryville recreation leaders with training on facilitating use of the kit with students, developed an after school nature curriculum, supported ECCL in filling their vacant positions for a garden leader and an environmental club facilitator, and provide resources to ECCL and EUSD on opportunities for connection with East Bay Regional Parks District, including field trips and visits from their mobile education unit.

Other Successful Efforts:

1) created a list of California native plants that are local to Emeryville, non-toxic, hardy, and with interesting features for children. It is being developed with the generous support of the East Bay Native Plants Resource Team.

2) advocated for the replacement of trees lost at Davenport Park, which were planted in May 2024

3) advised city staff and council on how to improve effectiveness and efficiency of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee so members and residents have a place to present park and environmental issues and make recommendations that will be thoroughly heard and considered

4) supported the City of Emeryville Community Services Department on the development of the city-wide parks survey and conducted community outreach to mobilize residents to fill out the survey in a way that shows that nature in our parks is a priority for our community

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