Springfield: Engaging the most vulnerable in Climate Resilience
What do mural paint parties, the Ivory Bunny and back-to-school backpacks have to do with Climate Resilience? In Springfield Massachusetts, it’s the core of the city’s recovery planning strategy. As Tina Quagliato Sullivan (Springfield’s Director of Disaster Recovery) explains, “the key to equitable recovery is to get the communities involved before disasters happen.”
For Springfield (a city that’s 46% Hispanic and 21% black), preparing for increasingly frequent and more severe weather events must address long-term stressors like racial economic inequality, and it needs to ensure that all residents have access to a more equitable and sustainable future.
Neighborhood Councils – deep engagement from one-on-one interaction with residents
With the start of the school year just days away, the New North Citizen’s Council and Springfield School Department treated children to a Summer Send-off at Roberto Clemente field. Eager children lined up to receive one of 3000 backpacks and revel in the excitement of the Back-To-School Party.
Through events like this, the Puerto Rican Heritage Parade, the YouthBuild program, and others, the New North Citizen’s Council can deeply engage with the community to educate and involve residents in the need for Climate Resiliency and what they can do to prepare for extreme weather incidents.
The MVP Grant – funding Neighborhood Council outreach
With the MVP Grant, the City of Springfield has provided funding to 9 Neighborhood Councils that are tasked with designing and implementing outreach programs to vulnerable populations in the neighborhoods.
These have included: Arts and Crafts Festivals, Cookouts, and food Truck Festivals in the city’s parks, Movie Nights, neighborhood cleanups, paintings of murals (like the one developed by graphic artist Gabriela
The MVP Grant – building awareness among the most vulnerable
An MVP grant for $105,000 (that is part of the $2 million Urban Forest MVP grant awarded to Springfield in 2021) is empowering the city to fund Neighborhood Councils to increase Climate Resilience awareness and participation in each neighborhood.
Each of the 21 Springfield Neighborhood Councils is a grass-roots organization of local residents that focuses on building community and bettering the lives of neighborhood citizens. As a result, these Councils are well-positioned to build awareness within vulnerable populations -- the very groups that are least likely to be aware of the threats posed by climate extremes and available resources to deal with them.
The neighborhood councils are tasked with designing and implementing their own programs that reach out to low-income populations, renters, youth, disabled and English-isolated residents.
Sepulveda -- aka “the ivory Bunny”) community gardens and youth activities. All of them are engaging residents from low-income populations and reaching out to vulnerable residents in Springfield’s neighborhoods.
Improving the process – sharing best practices and guidance
Tina Quagliato Sullivan explained that initially the Disaster Recovery team used funds for outreach on its own, but found that allowing councils to determine the best methods to grow awareness through grassroots activities was far more effective.
The Neighborhood Councils are staffed by volunteer who are residents, so they often don’t have experience running a non-profit organization. Council leaders could become more effective if the Office of Disaster Recovery developed a handbook of best practices that provides guidance and enabled the neighborhood councils to collaborate with each other share what’s working and to generate new ideas.
What would more funds deliver?
The MVP funding has established an effective model for community awareness and engagement. However, only 9 of the 21 Springfield Neighborhood Councils receive funding.
Tina notes that “With additional funding we could offer more events and more resources, and also develop best practices from other cities to provide the Neighborhood Councils with more ideas and better guidance.”
“Most important,” she concludes, “we would be able to build a stable resource that Neighborhood Councils can count on in the long run.