Nat'l Fish & Wildlife & FedEx Deliver Grant to Expand Parks' 5 Borough Parks Green Roof

Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, Long Island Sound Future's Fund and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Assistant Director Lynn Dwyer, FedEx Manager of Social Responsibility Rose Flenorl and FedEx, Green Apple Corps volunteers and MillionTreesNYC Training Program participants planted flowers and shrubs and prepared the Five Borough Shops roof for a new addition to its almost 20,000 square foot green roof.

"We are honored to be recognized by FedEx and the National Fish and Wildlife Founation for our efforts in making New York City a more sustainable place. With this grant, we will expand our green roof by another 6,000 square feet," said Commissioner Benepe. "Our GreenApple Corps, Park's public service division, secured this funding, an accomplishment the Corps can add to its long list of achievements from educating more than 2,000 children on the importance of tree and plant life to helping to train young adults for ‘green-collar' jobs."

The Parks Department's GreenApple Corps secured a $50,000 grant from FedEx and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to expand its green roof project at its Five Borough Shops on Randall's Island. Since 2007, the Parks Department has installed more than 16 green roof systems. The Five Borough Shops is the largest municipAl Green roof in the city and the city's largest green roof experiment grounds. The green roof project began in response to Mayor Michael Bloomberg's PlaNYC initiative to make New York City a greener and more sustainable city. The GreenApple Corps, a public service initiative of the Parks Department, began in October 2004 with the goal of immersing Corps members in a variety of work and learning experiences to provide them with technical skills, practical knowledge, and personal development opportunities.

"As a global company, with a significant portion of our operations, people and facilities based in metropolitan centers, we highly value healthy urban spaces," said Mitch Jackson, vice president, environmental affairs and sustainability, FedEx Corp. "Our work with NFWF offers a unique opportunity for our team members to work directly with local nonprofits to improve the urban spaces that we share with the communities where we live and work. We congratulate the six community groups that were selected to receive 2010 grants."

"Urban conservation is vital to the health and well being of city inhabitants," said Lynn Dwyer, northeast assistant director for the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. "By developing green space and providing public access in densely populated areas, we are also helping to deliver a straightforward answer to modern day problems, such as pollution and energy usage."

FedEx and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) are collaborating to address the most pressing urban environmental challenges in major U.S. cities. Through the NFWF - FedEx collaboration, more than $1 million in grants have been awarded in 2010 to local nonprofits from Los Angeles to Memphis to New York City. In 2011, FedEx will expand the collaboration with NFWF to include Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Seattle.

The FedEx commitment to NFWF supports FedEx EarthSmart Outreach, which is a focus area of EarthSmart - a FedEx commitment to deliver innovations to meet ambitious sustainability goals.

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