Christov Churchward's April Update

At the begining of the month I attended the Brownfields Conference in Philadelphia where I learned about many aspects of brownfieldsbrownfields including whole community engagement, economic barriers and incentives of redevelopment, art's role in telling the brownfield story, and specific laws revolving around redevelopment. After that, my time spent with in the urban forester's office revolved around tree plantings and volunteer work. We just passed the 10,000 tree mark for TreeVitalize during our final day of planting this season, which was a fun and important milesotne to cross. We also gave away 1,000 white flowering dogwood trees with the Shade Tree Commission, and I made it onto the news! I have a list of potential trees to plant to mitigate pollutants, which is currenlty being cross-checked by Matt at Tree Pittsburgh. For Action Housing, I spent time on the newsletter, meeting with the architects of the Pittsburgh Green House, and helping with various research projects. I've increased the resource list for the PGH and I helped Nancy with an educational session about energy efficiency in homes at the McKeesport YMCA. Things are going very well at both of my placements and I have no setbacks or frustrations to report.