Happy New Year from San Diego Foundation (SDF)! We are full of intention and energy to continue building resilient San Diego communities in 2024.
What a gift then, to start the year celebrating the $22 million Transformative Climate Communities grant we and our partners received from the California Strategic Growth Council in mid-December.
Together with our partners – Environmental Health Coalition and 11 other nonprofit organizations – we now start the process of strategizing how to turn those dollars into positive community impact.
This unprecedented investment in San Diego’s central historic barrios will fund green spaces, housing and transportation, community-led food production and distribution, community centers, and other community benefit projects identified by area residents.
San Diego’s central historic barrios include the seven neighborhoods of Logan, Stockton, Grant Hill, Mt. Hope, Sherman, Southcrest and Shelltown.
TCC showcases an important model of how investing in community-driven climate projects can advance our foundation’s strategic vision of building resilient communities. Neighborhoods in the central historic barrios are some of San Diego’s communities most vulnerable to climate impacts such as extreme heat and poor air quality. Through TCC, we can work together to change the trajectory of these frontline communities by facilitating investments in climate projects that provide multiple community benefits.
Building More Resilient Communities
A climate project is a transformative investment in the variety of ways it supports community health and environmental sustainability. One good example is the planting of trees, or urban forestation. Trees help remove pollutants from the air, reduce greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon that contribute to climate change, manage water pollution through stormwater capture, and mitigate extreme heat, a major public health risk. By investing in multiple climate projects, we can build more resilient communities.
How we face the impacts of a changing climate is a local problem to solve. As a community foundation, we are uniquely positioned to facilitate community-driven climate investments.
We are grateful to our partners, especially the Environmental Health Coalition, which started this work in 2019, and all of the community partners who contributed their time, expertise and energy to shaping the vision of what a climate-resilient community looks like in San Diego.
