By Karen Igou, Senior Program Manager for Community Engagement
During our recent Green Building United Sustainability Symposium, it was more apparent to me than ever that green stormwater management and flooding are very much sustainability issues and on the mind of sustainability practitioners all around. I led a tour focused on the green stormwater practices on Temple University campus and ran tech for a panel that included information on the native plant garden installations at the Philadelphia airport. These projects help reduce flooding and save resources by eliminating disaster and negligence clean up of communities and waterways.
We are working in Northeast Wilmington to address climate impacts and flooding from the Brandywine River after Hurricane Ida nearly 5 years ago. We do our work through the community led education group Northeast Rising. To stay engaged over time, Northeast Rising group members wanted to focus on community greening and food security. We were thrilled to receive a 2025 Partnership for the Delaware Estuary mini-grant to purchase planting supplies, equipment and and native pollinator and food plants for gardens in Northeast.
Through the grant, we were given funds to plant highbush blueberries, American hazelnuts, Elderberries, and other non-edible native pollinator friendly plants. Together we planted highbush blueberries as adorable street bushes on 25th Street and a beautiful Shadbush street tree on Lamotte Street which residents say has brightened the whole block! At a community planting day at Conscious Connections Urban Farm at 23rd and Market, we planted edible natives in the lot we lease for food production (Lot B); and pollinator plants in the front facing beds of Lot A, where we also established a community refrigerator and pantry. The pollinators planted at Lot A (with volunteers from Planting to Feed, Inc). have settled in well and the red yarrow, yellow coreopsis and pink and white milkweed have grown in beautifully.
Most recently a team member, Habitat for Humanity New Castle County homeowner, and Ida flooding survivor brought up a community space that would be great for planting to the group. Through this connection, we partnered with Habitat for their spring Rock the Block event to beautify the space and make it more welcoming and safer. We planted several Blueberry bushes and Hazelnut trees in the lot to add to the Redbuds and Goldenrod thriving from a previous planting. These cooling “pocket parks” will become increasingly more important as heat is the highest vulnerability for Northeast Wilmington.
These native plants will also help with nuisance flooding and support education and understanding around green stormwater infrastructure solutions for the larger flooding issues in Northeast. The gardening gets us out in community in the fresh air, sunshine and soil with plenty of time for conversation, group self-organizing, and engagement. The seasonal and weather related needs of the plants and trees keep us attuned to nature. We all know now that the Shadbush bloom time is a heads up that the American Shad are running in the Brandywine. The community’s relationship with their watershed has been deepened through this grant.
Follow along for resilience in action @denortheastrising.