ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECTS

Nashville Earth Day and Centennial Park Conservancy annually donate to support local environmental initiatives to create ongoing environmental change in our city.

Centennial Park Conservancy is excited to donate $60,000, the proceeds from Nashville Earth Day's 2024 festival, to underwrite environmental projects in public spaces across Nashville.

Proceeds from Nashville Earth Day, the city’s official annual event to celebrate Earth Day, have been used to underwrite local environmental projects via a grant program primarily focused on bees, trees, water, pollinator gardens, sustainability, and education. Since Centennial Park Conservancy began management of Nashville Earth Day in 2020, the organization has donated a total of $160,000 to support environmental initiatives.

OVERVIEW

Since 2020, Centennial Park Conservancy’s donated proceeds from Nashville Earth Day have funded the planting of over 325 trees in Boyd, Dudley, Frederick Douglass, Green Hills, Hadley, Hartman, Mill Ridge, and Shelby Parks, plus Carter Lawrence Elementary; cared for 300,000 bees in Centennial Park and introduced 9K bees to Shelby and Mill Ridge Parks; planted 20 pollinator and community gardens including Green Hills, Hadley, Hartman, Mullins, and Shelby Parks, plus Stratford STEM Magnet School; cleaned up 16 waterways in Bordeaux, Donelson, Joelton, Madison, Midtown, Southeast Nashville, and West Nashville; and provided education to thousands of adults and children in parks and classrooms across our community. Nashville Earth Day has also facilitated the giving away of 2,450 trees to the public that have been planted in yards across our community (in partnership with Nashville Tree Foundation and Amazon), removed invasive plants; and provided education to thousands of adults and children in parks and classrooms across our community.

2024 Environmental Projects:

Supporting the composting program at Aventura Community School, in partnership with Compost Nashville

Restoring and redesigning the native pollinator garden at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, including educational and interpretive signage
Improvements to the Buchanan Arts Community Garden, including weather-resistant signage, seven new garden beds, and the addition of rain barrels, a composting zone and a garden shed
Development of a native plant pollinator garden at Crieve Hall Elementary School, in partnership with Crieve Hall Elementary School PTA
Expanding the Cumberland River Compact Residential Pocket Prairie program, including de-paving and replanting impervious areas such as parking lots
Supporting the Restore The Forest program to continue to repair the ecosystem of Beech Grove Hill in Shelby Park with Friends of Shelby Park & Bottoms
Engaging Edgehill-area youth with arborist and landscape architect career training; including mulching, planting trees and clean-up work with Friends of the William Edmondson Homesite Park and Garden
Planting 25 native trees and installing a pollinator garden at Thurgood Marshall Middle School, and providing students with trees or food plants to plant at home, coordinated by Green Interchange
Stream clean-up in Richland Creek, improving riparian buffers and replacing invasive plants with native trees and perennials, with the Harpeth River Conservancy
Park maintenance and pollinator-friendly planting at the Triangle Pocket Park Pollinator Pathway, in partnership with the Hillsboro-West End Neighborhood
Acquisition of rain barrels to sustainably support and tend the community garden at Inglewood Elementary School
Installation of bat and bird houses at the arboretum at Ellington Agricultural Center; completion of the pollinator garden at Percy Warner Park; and purchase of native bee structures, all via the Master Gardeners of Davidson County
Providing annual care for 300,000 bees that reside in hives located in Centennial Park in partnership with Nashville Area Beekeepers Association
Renovation of the rain garden at McCabe Community Center, replanting the center’s green roof with native plants, and installation of a new pollinator garden, supported by the Nashville Parks Foundation
Planting 30 trees at a Metro Nashville Public School (partner school yet to be determined); purchasing tools to facilitate this and all future tree-planting events; and giving away 150 trees at a Musicians Corner event at Centennial Park in 2025, all via Nashville Tree Foundation
Constructing a greenhouse and adding five new garden beds at Norman Binkley Elementary School, coordinated by the Norman Binkley Elementary School Parent Teacher Association
Establish a pocket grassland at Stratford STEM Magnet High School to facilitate a multi-year student research opportunity and serve as a living lab for science classes, via the Stratford STEM Magnet High School Interdisciplinary Science & Research Program
Maintenance and support for the Tennessee Environmental Council’s “Generate Some Buzz” pollinator garden program and its wildflower seed scholarship program
Addition of native shade and fruit trees to the community garden and urban foodscape at Trinity Community Commons, establishing a native perennial pollinator garden, building more community garden beds and establishing a water catchment system
Support for funding an extracurricular learning garden program at Inglewood Elementary School, a pilot program that can be expanded to additional schools in future years, via Turnip Green Creative Reuse
Educator training sessions that will teach K-12 teachers how to bring sustainability practices into the classroom by Urban Green Lab

2023 Environmental Projects:

View Press Release

Providing annual care for 160,000 bees that reside in hives located in Centennial Park in Midtown Nashville, in partnership with Nashville Area Beekeepers Association

Funding a Nashville Tree Foundation tree planting at educational program and McKissack Middle School that will plant 40 trees and educate 180 students
Establishing a community garden in Southeast Nashville centered on native plants that are significant to the tribes that were historically based in Tennessee, in partnership with the Native American Indian Association of Tennessee
Native plant giveaway of at least 1,300 plants to more than 60 families, in partnership with Neighbors for Native Plants
Water-quality improvements and long-term water-quality monitoring at Beaman Park, with Friends of Beaman Park
STEM-focused environmental education programs in Metro Nashville Public Schools, with Nashville Wildlife Conservation Center
Honeybee infrastructure (fencing, landscaping, cameras) at Stratford High School
Gardening workshops, plant swaps and volunteer opportunities in Summer 2024 via Turnip Green Creative Reuse
Expanding the Residential Pocket Prairie program and promoting No-Mow May, for water quality and biodiversity, in partnership with Cumberland River Compact
Updates and revitalization of Crieve Hall Elementary School’s on-site food garden, with Crieve Hall Elementary School PTA
Removal of invasive plants from Shelby Park via a goat program such as the Chew Crew, in partnership with Friends of Shelby Park & Bottoms
Inglewood pollinator habitat labor, via Inglewood Elementary School
Stream clean-up in Richland Creek and Mill Creek, with the Harpeth River Conservancy
Establishment of “gateway gardens” at Mill Ridge Park, in partnership with Friends of Mill Ridge Park
Educator training sessions that will teach how to bring sustainability practices into the classroom by Urban Green Lab

2022 Environmental Projects:

View Press Release

Planted 60 trees at Carter Lawrence Elementary in Edgehill, Dudley Park in Napier, and a streetscaping project in North Nashville - in partnership with Nashville Tree Foundation
Provided annual care for 160,000 bees that reside in hives located in Centennial Park in Midtown Nashville - in partnership with Nashville Area Beekeepers Association
Underwrote the Sustainable Classrooms program to train 24 teachers who will educate 2,400 MNPS children on the importance of sustainable living - in partnership with Urban Green Lab
Conducted pond improvements, planting 10 trees and native plants, and providing a community compost bin at te Friends' House at Mill Ridge Park in Southeast Nashville - in partnership with Friends of Mill Ridge Park
Expanded the planting of native wildflower gardens at Stratford STEM Magnet School in East Nashville - in partnership with Tennessee Environmental Council
Planted native shrubs, flowers, and grasses to help support pollinators in Green Hills Park in West Nashville - in partnership with Friends of Green Hills Park
Gave away 1250 trees to help restore Nashville's urban canopy - in partnership with The Nashville Tree Foundation

2021 Environmental Projects:

BEES: We partnered with Nashville Area Beekeepers Association and provided annual funding to care for the 160,000 bees that reside on Lake Watauga in Centennial Park. We also funded 9,000 bees in Mill Ridge Park, and 3,000 bees plus the creation of a Bee Sanctuary with fruit trees in Shelby Park