GRO1000 Gardens and Green Spaces Initiative Comes to Los Angeles and Kicks off Keep Los Angeles Beautiful's Great American Cleanup Area students will plant and dedicate a community garden at Proyecto Pastoral Community Center on the city's Eastside
LOS ANGELES, CA (March 18, 2010) – The Scotts Miracle-Gro® Company today joins with the City of Los Angeles, Keep Los Angeles Beautiful and a host of national partners in the dedication of a series of reading, learning and community gardens in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles. The installation event is part of the new GRO1000 gardening and green spaces initiative and helps to kick off Keep Los Angeles Beautiful's Great American Cleanup.
GRO1000 is a partnership committed to the establishment of 1,000 community gardens and green spaces over the next eight years throughout the United States and abroad. The program is designed to bring opportunities for individuals and communities, like Boyle Heights, to experience the benefits of community gardening and access to green spaces.
"We welcome GRO1000 and its efforts to bring our citizens, and particularly our youth, opportunities to get involved and learn firsthand the benefits of environmental stewardship while also beautifying our community," said Mayor Villaraigosa. "The City of Los Angeles and GRO1000's public-private partnership will directly help organizations such as Proyecto Pastoral and the Guadalupe Homeless Project that feed some of our most vulnerable residents."
The Los Angeles GRO1000 dedication event kicks off at 4 p.m., March 18 at the Proyecto Pastoral Community Center in the Boyle Heights, 135 North Mission Road, Los Angeles, CA 90033. More than 200 area students, as well as members of the Guadalupe Homeless Project, will join city officials and GRO1000 national and local partners in the garden installation and dedication as well as a series of educational activities geared around gardening. One deserving student at the event will also be presented with the national Give Back To Gro Youth Gardener Award.
Community organizations interested in participating in GRO1000, by installing their own community garden, edible garden or green space, are able to apply for a GRO1000 Grassroots Grant by visiting http://www.thescottsmiraclegrocompany.com/GRO1000. Projects should include the involvement of neighborhood residents and foster a sense of community spirit. Interested organizations have until March 31, at midnight EST, to apply.
GRO1000 Los Angeles was made possible through the combined efforts of local partners Keep Los Angeles Beautiful and the City of Los Angeles, with national partners ScottsMiracle-Gro, Keep America Beautiful, Plant A Row for the Hungry, the National Gardening Association, the Garden Writers Association and Franklin Park Conservatory. The GRO1000 initiative also encourages participating local gardeners to dedicate a portion of their ongoing harvests from the installed gardens to support local hunger needs. The Proyecto Pastoral at Dolores Mission will be the point of distribution of harvests for the hungry.
In addition to Los Angeles, other GRO1000 public installation events for 2011 will take place in Tampa; Houston; New York; Chicago; Ontario, Canada; Lyon, France and sites soon to be announced.
###About ScottsMiracle-Gro With approximately $3 billion in worldwide sales, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, The Scotts Company LLC, is the world's largest marketer of branded consumer products for lawn and garden care. The Company's brands are the most recognized in the industry. In the U.S., the Company's Scotts®, Miracle-Gro® and Ortho® brands are market-leading in their categories, as is the consumer Roundup® brand, which is marketed in North America and most of Europe exclusively by Scotts and owned by Monsanto. In Europe, the Company's brands include Weedol®, Pathclear®, Evergreen®, Levington®, Miracle-Gro®, KB®, Fertiligene® and Substral®. For additional information, visit us at www.scotts.com.
Contacts: Su Lok The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company 937-578-5169 (office) 937-309-5616 (mobile) su.lok@scotts.com Karen Bailey Fahlgren Mortine 614-383-1604 (office) 614-716-9678 (mobile) Karen.Bailey@fahlgren.com