Green Bronx Machine celebrates 5 years of partnership with Con Edison at ribbon-cutting ceremony at Con Edison Claremont Village Community Garden at Community School 55

[Bronx, New York] – Green Bronx Machine will welcome Con Edison, community members, local officials, students, parents, and guests from Google to tour the newly-reopened Con Edison Claremont Village Community Garden at CS55. At 11:45, students will introduce attendees to all the flowers and crops they’ve been planting this semester and highlight the student-painted mural (supervised by artist Michela Muserra). At 12:00, there will be a ribbon-cutting ceremony and vegetable and pollinator parade. At 12:30, guests will be invited to tour the National Health, Wellness & Learning Center and partake in a student-grown and student-prepared salad prepared in partnership with Chef Marian Laraia, Executive Culinary Instructor at Google.

WHEN: June 20, 2023, at 12:00pm

WHERE: CS 55 / Con Edison Claremont Village Community Garden

450 St. Paul’s Place

Bronx NY 10456

“Con Edison applauds The Green Bronx Machine for their leadership in making the reopening of the Claremont Village Community Garden possible,” said Jen Hensley, senior vice president of corporate affairs for Con Edison. “We are proud that our partnership will expand access to green spaces and provide the Bronx and the residents of the Claremont Village neighborhood a revitalized space. Improving the quality of life for the communities we serve is core to Con Edison’s mission, and we’re especially thrilled this project focuses on native biodiversity, which is critical to the sustainability of our city. Even the bees will benefit from this blossoming garden!”

“The Adams Administration extends its profound gratitude to Con Edison for their ongoing support in the advancement of agricultural educational programming in schools throughout New York City. Through an extensive array of agricultural educational initiatives offered by The Green Bronx Machine, students have been granted invaluable opportunities to engage in immersive, hands-on learning experiences. These activities have equipped students with practical knowledge pertaining to farming, food production, and the importance of embracing sustainable practices. Con Edison’s role in investing in these initiatives has rendered them an indispensable catalyst in inspiring the next generation of dedicated environmental stewards.”

-Kate MacKenzie, Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Food Policy 

“Urban agriculture is critical to New York City. Having more community gardens where future climate stewards can grow fresh food and learn is key,” said Mayor’s Office of Urban Agriculture Executive Director Qiana Mickie. “Congratulations to Green Bronx Machine on the reopening of the Con Edison Claremont Village Community Garden at CS 55! Kudos to Con Ed for understanding the importance of gardens in the lives of students, community residents, and supporting this garden.”

“I chose to fund the Green Bronx Machine because I support their mission to build healthy, equitable, and resilient communities. Thank you, Con Edison, for supporting the program’s efforts to unveil its community garden.”  Assembly Member Chantel Jackson, District 79, Bronx NY. 

Stephen Ritz, founder of Green Bronx Machine, says: “From day one, Con Edison has been a steadfast partner of Green Bronx Machine and our work throughout the Bronx. We thank Con Edison for supporting our programming – including our community gardens, our school gardens, and our lauded Green Bronx Machine in a Box program which has connected schools across District 9 in the Bronx.

Con Edison has been there to support our teachers, students, and schools with Green Bronx Machine Classroom Curriculum, supplies, indoor academic gardens, ongoing professional development, and our unique Green Bronx Machine/Con Edison Connected Classroom programming. 

Today, we celebrate Con Edison’s generous support, which enabled us to rebuild and reopen Green Bronx Machine’s Con Edison Claremont Village Community Garden at CS 55, which will provide fresh food, STEM learning, and sustainability and career/technical education opportunities as well as a safe, healthy, open, and inviting space for our residents built upon restorative and regenerative practices. This is an initiative we can all be proud of as our children and staff have responded with unbounded love and enthusiasm. We look forward to expanding our partnership and growing something greater, together. Thanks, Con Edison for making epic happen!”

Principal Luis E Torres – Community School 55 added: “Through the work of Green Bronx Machine powered by Con Edison, Claremont Village is cleaner, greener, healthier, and happier. I’m thrilled to see that a program that started right here at Community School 55, is now impacting schools and communities across the Bronx. This partnership is a model of community programming and impact. Thanks to Con Edison and Green Bronx Machine, we are all breathing easier and eating healthier in community.”

About Green Bronx Machine

Founded in 2011 by Global Teaching Prize finalist and life-long educator Stephen Ritz, Green Bronx Machine (GBM) is an impact driven, for-purpose organization with 501(c)(3) status.  GBM builds healthy, equitable and resilient communities through inspired education, local food systems, and 21st Century workforce development. Dedicated to cultivating minds and harvesting hope, its school-based model and propriety curriculum uses urban agriculture aligned to key school performance indicators, to grow healthy students and healthy schools.  Simultaneously, GBM also transforms once fragmented and marginalized communities into neighborhoods that are inclusive and thriving.

In the last year alone, GBM and Ritz have distributed more than 150,000 pounds of food, produced 5,000-plus pounds of produce grown locally in the Bronx, built and stocked three new food pantries, delivered weekly 152 backpacks of food to students and fulfilled more than 1,600 emergency food requests from families in need. Ritz and GBM also have trained nearly 1,500 teachers using GBM’s curriculum, impacting more than 275,000 students in the Bronx, across America and around the world and were proud to debut Let’s Learn with Mister Ritz, a PBS children’s show with more than 2 million views.

(https://greenbronxmachine.org/2022-impact-report/).

 For more information, visit https://greenbronxmachine.org.

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About Consolidated Edison, Inc.

Consolidated Edison, Inc. is one of the nation’s largest investor-owned energy-delivery companies, with approximately $16 billion in annual revenues and $63 billion in assets. The company provides a wide range of energy-related products and services to its customers through the following subsidiaries: Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. (CECONY), a regulated utility providing electric service in New York City and New York’s Westchester County, gas service in Manhattan, the Bronx, parts of Queens and parts of Westchester, and steam service in Manhattan; Orange and Rockland Utilities, Inc. (O&R), a regulated utility serving customers in a 1,300-square-mile area in southeastern New York State and northern New Jersey; and Con Edison Transmission, Inc., which falls primarily under the oversight of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and manages, through joint ventures, both electric and gas assets while seeking to develop electric transmission projects that will bring clean, renewable electricity to customers, focusing on New York, New England, the Mid-Atlantic states and the Midwest.

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