GRO1000 Gardens and Green Spaces Grant Awards Program

The United States Conference of Mayors and The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company's GRO1000 Gardens and Green Spaces Program promotes and recognizes mayoral leadership in the development of greenscapes across the nation.

Why Gardens and Green Spaces?

To help drive garden and green space development in cities across the U.S., The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) established a partnership with ScottsMiracle-Gro's GRO1000 Gardens and Green Spaces Program. Through this partnership, the USCM and its membership will help ScottsMiracle-Gro bring gardens and green spaces to communities across the United States. ScottsMiracle-Gro launched GRO1000 in 2011. The outreach initiative is designed to create 1,000 gardens and green spaces in the U.S., Canada and Europe by 2018, the Company's 150th anniversary.

The United States Conference of Mayors and ScottsMiracle-Gro are committed to the development of gardens and green spaces across the nation. USCM is focused on strengthening and expanding its community garden strategy to maintain a leadership role in stewardship and development of our nation's green spaces, to recognize outstanding leadership and innovative solutions and to identify model green space initiatives and best practices.

The United States Conference of Mayors was established 79 years ago and is the official nonpartisan organization representing cities with populations of 30,000 or more. The Conference represents the interests of more than 1,200 cities at the national level. The United States Conference of Mayors Standing Committee on Tourism, Arts, Parks, Entertainment and Sports (TAPES), currently chaired by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, has policy jurisdiction over all issues pertaining to travel and tourism, arts and culture, parks, entertainment industry and sports.

Mayors Stephanie Rawlings-Blake of Baltimore, Steven Benjamin of Columbia, (SC), Frank Jackson of Cleveland, Joe Adame of Corpus Christi (TX), and Edwin Lee of San Francisco, were awarded 2012 GRO1000 Gardens and Green Spaces Grants during the USCM's 80th Winter Meeting in Washington, DC. This was the first year in which cities competed for these grant awards.

Over the last several years, the TAPES Committee has discussed and adopted a number of resolutions pertaining to cities increasing their number of green spaces, including community gardens. The mayors have specifically called for cities to develop, grow and maintain edible gardens in parks, on city hall land and in municipal community gardens.

ScottsMiracle-Gro is dedicated to helping create a beautiful world through industry-leading lawn, garden and outdoor living products and services. Through its focus on innovation, strong retailer relationships and a drive to improve the consumer experience, the Company has been instrumental in growing the $8 billion global consumer lawn and garden market. ScottsMiracle-Gro operates primarily in North America, along with businesses in Europe and Asia Pacific, and employs approximately 8,000 associates. The Company was founded in 1868 in Marysville, Ohio.

Eligibility for Participation in the 2013 GRO1000 Gardens and Green Spaces Program

Every municipality in the United States is eligible to nominate one new or one substantial addition to an existing public garden, edible garden or green space within their community. All garden and green space projects initiated by the city government are eligible, including those projects developed and implemented in conjunction with community garden groups and other relevant community partners.

GRO1000 Gardens and Green Spaces Application Criteria

Projects should address the following priorities:

1. Engage area residents, including local young people/students.
2. Be transformational in scope;
3. Serve as a focal point/visible project for the city;
4. Impact the lives of its residents; and
5. Serve as an essential element of the city's sustainability plan.

All application submissions must include a letter of support from the mayor.

What Award Winning Cities Must Do

When making the decision to participate in the 2013 GRO1000 Program, please consider the following requirements of award winners:

• All GRO1000 award-winning mayors must attend or send a designee to the awards announcement ceremony during the USCM's 81st Winter Meeting in Washington, DC, January 17-19, 2013.
• Each award recipient must hold a local mayoral dedication event following the announcement ceremony in January. Local dedication events will be held from March through June 2013. Representatives from The United States Conference of Mayors and ScottsMiracle-Gro will be extensively involved with assisting municipal staff in planning the local dedication event and will be in attendance to re-present the award to the mayor. Key components of the dedication event include community involvement, volunteer service, and educational activities for youth. One deserving youth will be recognized with the ScottsMiracle-Gro Give Back to Gro Youth Gardener Award.
• Cities will be asked to provide informal progress reports on the garden or green space six months and one year after the dedication event.

What Award Winning Mayors and Their Cities Receive

• GRO1000 award-recipient mayors will be recognized at the 2013 81st Winter Meeting of The United States Conference of Mayors, January 17-19, 2013.
• Each winning city will receive a grant in the amount of $25,000 ($15,000 cash; $10,000 in-kind product from ScottsMiracle-Gro).
• A local mayoral dedication event will be held at the garden or green space installation site for each of the five GRO1000 award-winning mayors.
• Press releases for winning cities will be released. The cities and their projects will also be the focus of a national media campaign by the USCM and ScottsMiracle-Gro to publicize the cities' achievements in creating exemplary garden or green space projects.
• Mayors will be featured in U.S.Mayor, the twice-monthly news publication of The United States Conference of Mayors, and a description of the winning programs will be highlighted on The Conference's Web site.

Selection Process

An independent panel of advisors, comprised of former mayors and subject matter experts, will help select the 2013 winners of the GRO1000 Gardens and Green Spaces Program. The advisors will meet in early December to review the applications. The GRO1000 grants are open to USCM members and non-members. However, membership in good standing will be one of the factors the advisors will consider.