Advancing Healthy, Thriving, and Resilient Communities

Groundwork supports local leaders and community-driven efforts to address some of the country’s most persistent urban environmental and societal challenges—pollution, extreme heat, poor air and water quality, lack of access to green spaces and healthy foods, and insufficient opportunities for residents to shape decisions about the future of their community. Through long-term, sustained engagement, this program holistically addresses the root causes of environmental harm and creates healthy, thriving, and resilient communities for all by:

• Changing places: transforming underutilized land and waterways into community assets like parks, trails, and community gardens that facilitate connection, recreation, and health.
• Changing lives: addressing social, economic, and environmental harms through leadership development and workforce training opportunities for young people.
• Changing systems: building connections between community members and local leadership to increase resident involvement in decision-making.  

Groundwork unites the expertise and resources of three leading national organizations—the National Park Service - Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program; Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization; and Groundwork USA—to help local communities achieve their specific goals for improving their physical and social environment.