A Pocket Healing Forest Grows In NYC At Roosevelt Island's Southpoint Park Planted in Partnership With Local iDig2Learn And Global Sugi Project

Roosevelt Island resident and iDig2Learn founder Christina Delfico was featured in a March 7 Instagram Story by Public Opinion NYC about planting of the Manhattan Pocket Healing Forest in partnership with the Sugi Project here at Southpoint Park in April 2024.

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According to iDig2Learn comments in the Public Opinion Instagram Story:

• Thank you 💚. We love creating green space that benefits all species and uplifts our health physically and mentally!
• The Miyawaki Method insists on starting with nutrient-rich amended soil (think compost, fungi - no chemical fertilizers) the quick growth happens when layers of plants canopy, sub-canopy, shrubs, ground cover are planted very close together - definitely a-new-to-us technique. So close that the underground fungi can connect to all the tree roots exchanging nutrients trees can not uptake in exchange for sugars if they need from trees. The key is in closeness! We are so grateful @rooseveltislandny helps care for this baby forest on the daily, first 3 years need water and weed care, then it is self-sufficient.

Here's more on the Roosevelt Island Healing Forest from the planting last April.

Check out the progress of the Manhattan Pocket Healing Forest at Southpoint Park as we approach it's first birthday this April.

IDig2Learn Bellies, Bins & Beauty Food Appreciation Series Returns Tuesday January 21 - You're Invited To Enjoy A Roosevelt Island Community Soup Time Meal Featuring Our Local Soup Lady, RSVP To Reserve Your Spot

Roosevelt Island resident and iDig2Learn founder Christina Delfico reports:

Bellies, Bins and Beauty is Back! iDig2Learn is thrilled to continue our food appreciation series kicking off next week our first event of 2025. Join us for SOUP TIME featuring The Soup Lady and her delicious soups on Tuesday, January 21st.

Year after year we have hosted community gatherings featuring chefs, entrepreneurs and doctors to not only enjoy a meal together but learn about food as a healing force and how to enjoy more of our food and waste less.

On our journey we are learning from each other how to consume more of our food into Bellies, capture the food scraps for Bins and then use compost processed from those scraps to create Beauty by feeding flowers, trees and food gardens to complete the circle.

Please join us and learn about other positive efforts uplifting the neighborhood.

Bellies, Bins and Beauty is brought to you by RIOC Public Purpose Funds, NY State Assembly Member Rebecca Seawright and individual supporters like you.

Click here for more info and to register for Soup Time featuring The Soup Lady.

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Great Work For Our Community Being Done By Roosevelt Island Non Profit Organizations - Take A Look Back At 2024 Accomplishments By Main Street Theatre & Dance Alliance, iDig2Learn And Haki Compost Collective, Plans For 2025 Too

Roosevelt Island is fortunate to have many local non profit organizations run by residents offering a wide variety of services and programs for our community. Take a look back at what several of them have accomplished in 2024 and plans for 2025.

The Main Street Theatre & Dance Alliance.

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iDig2Learn.  

Haki Compost Collective.

Greetings from Haki,

WOW! In just 13 Saturdays we collected 7,093 pounds of veggie and fruit scraps for the Big Reuse compost program. 2025 kicks off this Saturday, January 4th and yes, the Haki volunteers will be on hand to collect your food scraps in the green bins from 9 am to 2 pm at Motorgate Plaza.

Volunteers welcome!

Please write to find out how you can be part of the Haki Compost Collective - Hakicompost@gmail.com

Corinna & Christina (Volunteers for Haki)

Thank you for all the great work you do for Roosevelt Island!!!!

Sponsored Post - Season's Greetings From IDig2Learn - Our Mission Is To Engage The Public With The Plant World And All The Living Species That Depend Upon Healthy Land, Sky And Water - Including Us

Since 2012, iDig2Learn has marveled at earth’s systems while learning how to reconnect with our natural world and waste less of its vital resources thanks to you.

In 2024 iDig2Learn was thrilled to team up with extraordinary partners and community members to plant the first NYC Miyawaki Method pocket forest at Southpoint Park.

We also celebrated City of Water day in July at FDR Four Freedoms State Park, City of Forest Day in October at Lighthouse Park plus served over 2,500 young students on their plant and nature journey through programming at Socrates Sculpture Park, Island Kids and the Youth Center and beyond.

As you enjoy Roosevelt Island please also visit the grounds of Coler Hospital and Lighthouse Park and the over 406 mature and newly planted trees and take a look at the community assembled professional tree labels now on display.

Thank you for creating a welcoming multi-species community.

We look forward to seeing you outdoors in 2025!

Please stay connected on IG:@idig2learn or idig2learn.org

Celebrate City Of Forest Day Saturday October 26 At Roosevelt Island Lighthouse Park - Come Join Our Neighbors To Learn About Tree Stewardship, Enjoy The Beautiful Fall Colors, A Special Ecological Dance Performance & More Family Fun Activities

Roosevelt Island resident and iDig2Learn founder Christina Delfico invites you to the third annual City Of Forest Day celebration activities at Roosevelt Island's Lighthouse Park on Saturday October 26. According to Ms Delfico:

Aiming to raise awareness of the natural beauty of Lighthouse Park surrounding Coler Hospital and the importance of the urban forest, and the vital role residents play in caring for the “lungs” of our city, while having fun doing so, three organizations – iDig2Learn, Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance (MSTDA) and NYC Health + Hospitals/Coler (Coler Hospital) – are collaborating to host “Forest for Us” a City of Forest Day event on Roosevelt Island.

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This third annual event will celebrate the trees at the northern tip of Roosevelt Island. The afternoon includes a series of activities, supporting awareness of trees’ vital role in our local environment – they stabilize the land capturing rain during storm events, which reduces flooding, they provide a calming respite for our mental health, they inhale carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen and provide food and shelter for birds and butterflies.

Image From 2023 City Of Forest Day At Lighthouse Park

One highlight, returning thanks to MSTDA partners, is a performance from famed dancer Jody Sperling featuring dancers from the Time Lapse Dance ensemble, whose work “aims to investigate the relationship of the moving body to the ecologies we inhabit through performance, media, education and activism.” From 3:00 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. the company will perform excerpts from “Arbor,” an ecologically-themed piece that expresses human kinship with trees.

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Another high point is an underground listening and drawing experience created for us by interdisciplinary artist Nikki Lindt who “explores the subterranean world both sonically and visually to tell stories about the earth’s ecosystems.” She will guide us to listen through headphones to what her microphones pick up and encourage us to draw what we hear “revealing surprisingly dramatic sonic arrays that normally remain hidden from our senses.”

Other activities will spotlight members from the community. Meet Andi of NiAva’s Body Bar to sample forest-infused body butters (while supplies last). Mingle with residents of Coler Hospital for a healthy snack while reveling in peak fall bloom of the sugar maples and tupelo trees. Enjoy savory appetizers from Jon of Poppa’s Pantry. Enjoy assembling a take home succulent in a beautifully handcrafted mini pot from local Winifred’s Collection. Reconnect with Coach Scot’s baseball players, the Girl Scouts, Roosevelt Island Garden Club and Haki Compost Collective members who will guide us to create mulch rings for existing trees planted in 2022. Attendees will also plant a handful of new trees and be invited to add professional botanical tree labels into the ground next to the trees, thanks to iDig2Learn receiving a Green Fund Grant. Cap off the event with members of the Roosevelt Island Plogging Club who will invite us to try Plogging while learning more about their club.

Don’t miss this annual day, especially while Lighthouse Park trees 

are in peak fall color. 

iDig2Learn is thrilled to celebrate City of Forest Day and team up again with Coler Hospital and Main Street Theatre and Dance Alliance to host this day on Roosevelt Island. Island residents and visitors alike treasure the island’s trees. No matter how you arrive – by ferry, subway, tram, bike, bus or foot – you cannot miss the abundance of greenspace on the island, which has been thoughtfully managed by the RIOC Grounds Team and supporting partners Trees New York and GRIN. Since 2022, with the help of these outstanding local partners and the work of RI Garden Club, Haki Compost Collective and Big Reuse, we have added 100 new baby trees, growing the urban tree canopy by focusing on native regional species that are known to support New York City’s habitat.

I am deeply thankful to our partners who co-create alongside iDig2Learn, including Girl Scouts, Roosevelt Island Garden Club and Coach Scot's baseball players and others to make the island beautiful. I invite everyone – our existing supporters and those new to our work – to join us for this joyful City of Forest Day to explore, celebrate and get to know our trees. By seeing the living trees as a who not a what we can better protect them. And we hope the tree labels, which were assembled by residents, will enable visitors to Lighthouse Park to learn more about the trees in the park and around Coler Hospital for years to come. Each of the afternoon’s free activities has been designed to inspire us to do more to help our trees thrive. 

Roosevelt Island’s City of Forest Day details include:

• ●  WHAT: City of Forest Day

• ●  WHEN: Saturday, October 26 – 2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.:

  • ●  2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. learn about tree stewardship and participate in a community

    mulching activity to blanket existing trees, plant a handful more and add tree labels

  • ●  2:30 p.m. – Meet Coler Hospital neighbors for healthy snacks and enjoy savory bites

    by Jon of Poppa’s Pantry

  • ●  2:30 p.m. – join Andi of NiAva’s Body Bar to sample natural Body Butters

  • ●  2:30 p.m. – plant a take home succulent in a handmade mini pot by Winifred’s

    Collection

  • ●  3:00 p.m. – enjoy a 15-minute performance by Jody Sperling’s Time Lapse Dance

    ensemble of excerpts from “Arbor”

• ●  3:30 p.m. – connect with the artist Nikki Lindt for underground listening and drawing as she connects microphones to trees so we can hear and also draw what we experience

• ●  3:30 p.m. – try plogging with the local teen-led Plogging Club to join in on this invigorating and healthy way to keep our community clean

WHERE: Roosevelt Island Lighthouse Park, 910 Main St, New York, NY 10044 (the northernmost tip of the island). Please note that in case of rain, the dance performance and art activity will take place indoors at the Good Shepherd Church Community Center on Roosevelt Island, 543 Main Street, New York, New York, 10044 (the dance performance will be upstairs and the art activity downstairs). For up to the minute updates on these events, please follow iDig2Learn on Instagram.

This celebration on Roosevelt Island is just one of over 80 taking place throughout New York City on October 26th to highlight the vital need to better protect, maintain, and expand the New York City urban forest to benefit all New Yorkers. iDig2Learn is a part of Forest for All NYC (FFANYC), a diverse coalition of over 157 organizations across business, nonprofit, conservation, and environmental justice sectors that is working to expand the tree canopy of the urban forest in New York City to 30% by 2035. FFANYC in partnership with the Parks and Open Space Partners – NYC Coalition and NYC Parks is presenting this citywide.

Sponsored Post - Roosevelt Island Forest Friends Needed To Help IDig2Learn Assemble Over 100 Tree Species Tag Stakes and Finalize A Tree Map For Lighthouse Park On Sunday September 15 - Please RSVP Now To Volunteer

Roosevelt Island resident and iDig2Learn founder Christina Delfico reports:

iDig2Learn has professional tree species tag stakes for the trees of Coler Hospital and Lighthouse Park. Come help us assemble them, learn about the trees on the northern end of Roosevelt Island. Join iDig2Learn  and enjoy light bites and forest-themed body butter samples while supplies last. 

Thanks to a generous grant by NYC Green Fund in partnership with City Parks Foundation and Partnership for Parks and ongoing support by Trees New York, RIOC and many local partners, iDig2Learn has been caring for the new trees at Lighthouse Park. Now we have a chance to finalize a tree map and wish for Forest Friends to help us assemble over 100 professional tree tag stakes on Sunday September 15th on Roosevelt Island. Please RSVP here if you would like to help.

These tags will be placed in the ground on October 26th for City of Forest Day 2024. This way residents and visitors alike can learn more about the vast species of trees surrounding Coler Hospital and Lighthouse Park. 

Image From Jenna Longo

Light bites by Poppa's Pantry, a sample of Niava's Body Butter, sweets by local baker Nia will fuel us (while supplies last) as we learn about the latest efforts to expand our urban tree canopy.

The iDig2Learn Instagram page shares some scenes from the past tree tagging at Lighthouse Park.

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Please RSVP to help assemble the Roosevelt Island Lighthouse Park tree species tags on Sunday September 15.

You're Invited To 17th Annual Waterfront Alliance City Of Water Day Saturday July 13 - Come Celebrate With iDig2Learn At Roosevelt Island FDR Four Freedoms Park And Many Other New York And New Jersey Waterfront Locations

You're invited to the Waterfront Alliance City Of Water Day celebration at Roosevelt Island's FDR Four Freedoms Park Saturday July 13.

Roosevelt Island resident and iDig2Learn founder Christina Delfico reports: 

FDR Four Freedoms State Park & iDig2Learn team up again to celebrate 2024 City of Water Day on Roosevelt Island at the Park. City of Water Day is a NY/NJ wide day with events citywide started by NY/NJ Hudson & Estuary Program & the Water Alliance. FREE and family friendly join us for water-themed crafts, pop-up library and a touch table of aquatic plants with iDig2Learn.

According to the Waterfront Alliance:

Get ready for the 17th Annual City of Water Day, set for Saturday, July 13! This regional day of celebration will see 60+ free, family-friendly events on or near the water, and is the perfect way to cool off this summer and engage with your local waterfront. Organized by the Waterfront Alliance and the New York–New Jersey Harbor & Estuary Program (HEP), City of Water Day champions the idea of a climate-resilient harbor and raises awareness about our changing climate.

Like every year, a wide array of festivities will span the entire region—from all five New York City boroughs to Westchester and Rockland counties, and across New Jersey. You can engage in a plethora of waterfront activities — kayaking, rowing, sailing, boat tours, educational workshops, coastal cleanups, nature walks, film screenings, and more! These events not only offer fun and learning, but also foster a deep connection with local waterways, emphasizing an equitably shared and resilient waterfront.

We’ve curated a list of event highlights, organized by area, so you can dive into a City of Water Day event near you. This is just a small sample of what City of Water Day has to offer —you can also check out the City of Water Day map for even more events!...

Here's what we learned about the NYC waterfront at the 2023 

and 2022

Roosevelt Island City of Water Day celebrations.

More info about the Waterfront Alliance

available at their website.

Sponsored Post - IDig2Learn Invites You To Participate In Forest Care Day At Roosevelt Island's Southpoint Park Manhattan Healing Forest Sunday May 19, Help Remove Weeds, Spread Wood Chips & Get To Know The Trees - Free Registration

iDig2Learn invites you to participate in Forest Care Day at Roosevelt Island's Southpoint Park Manhattan Healing Forest on Sunday May 19 from 1-3 PM

About the Event

Tend to the forest with us. This pocket forest was born thanks to the community and local partners who came together in early April 2024. Planted in partnership with funder SUGi in conjunction with RIOC, the Lenape Center and friends from the Yakama region, the first three years are vital to help them grow. Hope you can join us to learn more and spend a couple of hours together outdoors in the beautiful Southpoint Park on Roosevelt Island. All ages are welcome. We will bend down close to weed and check on the health of the plants together. Please bring your reusable waterbottle and dress for mess with sun protection as needed. iDig2Learn can't wait to see you! CLICK HERE TO REGISTER.

NBC Nightly News featured local Roosevelt Island resident and iDig2Learn founder Christina Delfico in this May 9 story  about the Southpoint Park SUGi Pocket Manhattan Healing Forest that was planted Saturday April 6.

Ms Delfico and SUGi Project Founder Elise Van Middelem described the Manhattan Healing Forest during the April 6, 2024 planting.

Click here to register for the May 19 Roosevelt Island Forest Care Day.

NBC Nightly News Feature Story Tonight On Roosevelt Island Southpoint Park SUGi Pocket Healing Forest Planted Last Month - Interview With Local Resident And iDig2Learn Founder Christina Delfico

NBC Nightly News featured local Roosevelt Island resident and iDig2Learn founder Christina Delfico in a story this evening about the Southpoint Park SUGi Pocket Healing Forest that was planted Saturday April 6.

Watch the story.

More info on the Roosevelt Island Healing Forest at the SUGi web site.

Here's my interview with Ms Delfico and SUGi Project Founder Elise Van Middelem during the April 6, 2024 planting.

And you can join iDig2Learn at the May 19 Forest Care Day.

Click here to RSVP.