This year during Earth Week on Wednesday, April 20, 2022 from 6-9 PM, join our celebration of Green City Force (GCF) as New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA)’s Civilian Climate Corps held in Central Park at Wollman Rink, a GCF partner. Get to know GCF Corps Members and alumni leading our innovative, replicable service model building a “future green city.”  Hear from an alumni panel including Domingo Morales, founder of Compost Power, and GCF's Director of Social Enterprise, Joshua Owens, as well as guest speakers including:

• Rohit “Rit” Aggarwala - NYC's Chief Climate Officer and Commissioner of NYC’s Department of Environmental Protection
• Tamara Greenfield - Deputy Executive Director, Design & Activation, NYC Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety
• Siobhan Watson - NYCHA’s Deputy Director of Sustainability Programs 

The event is open to the public. Plant-forward food and drink will be served. 

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Rohit T. “Rit” Aggarwala is a widely recognized expert on urban sustainability, technology, and mobility. He led the creation of the Mayor’s Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, founded the environmental grantmaking program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, and served as president of the Board of Directors of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group. He was part of the founding team at Sidewalk Labs — Google’s urban technology startup — and more recently was a senior urban tech fellow at the Jacobs Cornell-Technion Institute. He has provided advice and assistance to a number of foundations and impact investment funds and chaired the Regional Plan Association’s Fourth Regional Plan for the New York region. Aggarwala holds a PhD, MBA, and BA from Columbia University and an MA from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

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Tamara Greenfield was hired by the Mayor’s Office in 2015 to direct Building Healthy Communities, a place-based initiative to improve community health and wellness through fresh food access, physical activity, and safe and vibrant public spaces. She has since integrated this work into the Mayor’s Action Plan for Neighborhood Safety, connecting community-based safety and wellness efforts in a variety of NYC neighborhoods, with a particular focus on public housing communities. Prior to the Mayor’s Office, Tamara was Executive Director of Fourth Arts Block (FABNYC). During her eight years at FABNYC, Tamara led dozens of theaters, dance companies and arts groups on the Lower East Side, helping to leverage over $25 million in capital funds for cultural facilities and start innovative programs that ranged from neighborhood sustainability and resource sharing to public art and rehearsal space access. 

During that time, she also co-founded and directed Naturally Occurring Cultural Districts New York (NOCD-NY), a citywide coalition of arts and community organizations working together to revitalize NYC from the neighborhood up. Prior to FABNYC, Tamara led Partnerships for Parks’ Catalyst for Neighborhood Parks Program, a multi-year initiative combining public, private, and community assets to catalyze long term change in 16 parks in Red Hook, Astoria/LIC, Harlem, and Washington Heights. 

Tamara is a graduate of Coro Leadership New York and co-founder of the Dance Now NYC Festival. She received her Masters in Urban Planning from Hunter College and B.A. in Art History and International Development from Washington University in St. Louis. Tamara lives in Sunset Park, Brooklyn with her husband Issam.

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Siobhan Watson leads the Sustainability Programs Department at the New York City Housing Authority, overseeing capital programs aimed at installing solar energy, improving waste management facilities, and managing stormwater at NYCHA developments. She led the development of NYCHA’s first climate adaptation plan and has worked in partnership with Green City Force to establish urban forestry programming at NYCHA. Siobhan has previously worked in sustainability consulting and policy analysis in a variety of public and private roles. She holds a Master in City Planning degree from MIT as well as a PhD in environmental planning from Columbia University.

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Domingo Morales is a GCF Alumnus and inaugural David Prize winner. Domingo discovered his passion for farming and composting as a member of Cohort 10 in 2015. While serving with GCF, Domingo secured a job at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden working at the very compost site where he was receiving his training. Several years later he was managing the largest human powered compost site in the country. Through his own initiative founded in 2020, Compost Power, which has since hired several other GCF graduates, Domingo's vision is to build sustainable compost sites throughout NYC, with an emphasis on educating and engaging underserved communities in NYCHA and beyond. He is also developing an educational video series focused on urban composting.

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About GCF 

Since 2009, working at the intersection of environmental, economic and racial justice, GCF’s mission has been to train young leaders to power a green and inclusive society through service. GCF’s recruitment and AmeriCorps national service initiatives are focused in New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) which is a city within a city, representing roughly 1 in 15 New Yorkers. As NYCHA’s Civilian Climate Corps, members of GCF’s Service Corps, who are primarily Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), lead large-scale, multi-faceted sustainability initiatives improving the environment and health for fellow residents. Working in teams, in partnership with resident leaders, agencies and other organizations, Corps Members gain skills, certifications and experience to secure family-supporting careers in the green economy. At GCF, we believe in the knowledge and wisdom of people from frontline communities as the ones with the best understanding of what it takes to solve problems in their home communities, including climate solutions.

GCF is one of over 140 Corps within The Corps Network, a national organization fighting for investments in a national Civilian Climate Corps which would lead to equal access to quality employment and training, economic recovery, and infrastructure repairs. Our Corps Members serving NYCHA communities act as a model for just leadership and systemic change across all of NYCHA, NYC, and the nation in alignment with local, national, and global goals for climate and equity.

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Directions to Wollman Rink:

Central Park South (59th Street) and 6th Avenue. Wollman Rink is a two minute walk into Central Park from this entrance. Follow the footpath directly into the park and stay to the right.

BY SUBWAY

Take the A, B, C, D, 1 to 59th St.- Columbus Circle
Take the N, Q, R to 5th Ave/59th St.
Take the F to 57th Street

BY BUS:

Take the M1, M2, M3, M4 to 64th Street
Take the M5, M7, M10, M104 to Columbus Circle

PARKING:

There is no parking at the rink or within Central Park.