Are you a landscape architect/designer or a student in a design program looking for experience running your own project?
Call for Community Client Project & Designer Applications Applications Due November 30, 2022 @ 8pm
COMMUNITY CLIENT PROJECTS: To apply to become a community client, download the project application form. Please email your completed application to info@cogdesign.org or mail it to COGdesign, PO Box 380124, Cambridge, MA 02338
DESIGNER APPLICATION: Please download our brief application and email it to info@cogdesign.org so we can learn more about your background and skills.
COGdesign’s Annual Project Showcase, October 14, 2021
COGdesign seeks to hire a Community Project Assessment Intern, Summer 2021
Project-Assessment-Intern-Summer-2021-COGdesign is seeking an Operations Assistant to work eight hours a week, working remotely for the foreseeable future. Supervised by the Executive Director (ED), the Operations Assistant will assist in the day-to-day operations as well as special projects and events across COGdesign.
Operations-Assistant-Job-Description-2_10_212nd Call for Designers! Additional 2021 Projects
2nd-Call-for-DesignersLiaisons-2021-copy-2DESIGNER APPLICATION: Please fill out our brief application HERE so we can learn more about your background and skills.
COGdesign seeks landscape architects/designers and project liaisons for three 2021 projects — more project information to come
Call-for-DesignersLiaisons-2021
Thank you for your continued commitment to COGdesign!
Summer-appeal-2020 Please DonateImagine the garden space you’ve always wanted.
Let us help you create it!
Do you have a planting bed in need of rejuvenation?
Are pollinator plants missing in your garden?
Would you like to add privacy screening to create a cozier space?
If you’re in need of expert garden advice that is specific to your landscape, or just interested in gathering ideas for a future project, then join COG’s Design Consultation Fundraiser. For a $150.00 donation, COG will pair you with a landscape designer who has worked closely with COG in creating meaningful community gardens, parks and cultural green spaces.
How it works:
Donate: Make a $150.00 tax-deductible donation to COG via PayPal.
Contact us: Send an email to us at cogfundraiser@gmail.com with your contact information, the best days and times to reach you and your area of interest.
Schedule Design Consultation: COG will arrange for a designer to get back to you to set-up your 1 hour consultation. The session could be a phone call or video call that includes a tour of the area you would like help with. If possible, please email site photographs or simple measurements to help guide the design process before the session.
Design Consultation Session: At the session you and the designer will discuss your garden needs.
Written Follow-up: The designer will email a short written summary of the conversation with recommendations based on your specific garden needs, which could include plant materials, garden accessories or other design suggestions.
As a non-profit organization, we work to connect marginalized communities with professional landscape designers to create master landscape design plans for gardens, parks, and historic sites. Your donation will go a long way in helping us to continue our mission of helping the community in adding green, sustainable spaces to our urban and surrounding environments.
Click here to place your $150 donation and let’s get started today!
READ: Recent article 4/16/20 in the Charlestown Patriot-Bridge about our work with the Charlestown Coalition’s project to transform a disused park into a Peace Park honoring those lost to overdose and violence. https://bit.ly/COGPeacePark
FORUM: 5/13 Community Engagement Forum video conversation for our 2020 designers from 6:30-7:30. Get in touch if you’d like to be involved. info@cogdesign.org
EVENTS: Stay tuned for upcoming virtual events for the COG community…
Eleven community-initiated, pro bono projects in the Boston area
Project-Descriptions-2020-1.8.20-smallerDownload Project File:
COGdesign Supporters – Annual Appeal
Dear COGdesign Supporters,
We are grateful to you for your ongoing support of COGdesign. Your contributions make a real difference by supporting vital collaborations between community groups and landscape designers to bring essential, health-promoting green space to fruition.
The schematic drawings COG creates with low-income community groups are not only valuable for the community vision they bring to life but are an essential tool for fundraising. Our drawings provide access to the process; without a design communities applying for grants are handicapped and often ineligible. Four new COG projects are applying for significant funding this year; with the total value of our donated services exceeding $50,000. Your support makes this possible.
We know the pressure to develop open land for housing in Boston has never been greater — especially in neighborhoods where there are still hundreds of abandoned lots. But there is good news. COG is proud to be part of the success story for all our completed projects. One highlight is 2019’s Garden At Magnolia in Upham’s Corner, Dorchester. Our work has sparked a stronger connection with local politicians, new partnerships within the community and renewed energy to gain ownership of the land. The Magnolia site spans four parcels that were foreclosed on in the 1970s-80s. Now Boston’s Department of Neighborhood Development is on track to transfer ownership to our community clients Dudley Neighbors, Inc., and to designate the four lots as permanent open space.
“There is no question that COGdesign’s involvement has magnified the groundwork laid by the community and has served in great part to advance the project to the next phase,” says DNI Board Member, and Garden At Magnolia community project lead, Ricky Guerra. “And the fact that we are so intimately connected with our partners in this project — Dorchester Bay EDC and the Fairmount Greenway Task Force (FGTF) — means that we’re engaged in a green space movement much larger than this one neighborhood.” The Garden At Magnolia sits right on FGTF’s ‘neighborway,’ a safe walking and biking route on low-traffic streets running for nine miles along the Fairmount Corridor.
Twenty-two year-old college student Auston Harris grew up in Upham’s Corner and participated in his first Magnolia site cleanup at sixteen. Auston and his peers identified open community gathering/growing space as a need in their community and organized in favor of this resource head-on. For years, he and other residents canvassed door-to-door to garner support and organize clean up dates and community events to activate the site. He has become one of Magnolia’s most dedicated advocates.
At Ricky’s invitation, Auston led the third and final COGdesign meeting for Magnolia. His excitement brought the entire room a profound sense of optimism. “The process has been great — the design is a true reflection of community input and reflects the values we have fought for,” said Auston. “It’s really exciting to see this project move forward.”
COG’s involvement has jumpstarted the process of transforming the Garden At Magnolia. When students from Florida’s Stoneman Douglas High School reached out to offer the Boston Public Schools (BPS) a grant to create a peace memorial in honor of those who’ve died in gun violence, Boston Student Advisory Council students chose this emerging park as their site. In August, politicians and neighborhood officials rallied to celebrate the unveiling of the peace mural at Magnolia. Superintendent of the BPS Brenda Casselius spoke of the importance of creating safe, welcoming community spaces and of fostering neighborhood cohesion. We’re proud to have played a significant supporting role here.
COG’s work in community engagement and transformation is made possible by your donations. We know that green space is good for us. And research continues to prove it. Nature heals — even if that nature is a small urban park. Your gift enables COGdesign to support neighborhoods like Auston’s in their fight to dismantle the inequities in access to open space and to promote spatial justice.
Please take a minute to renew your support online by clicking the green ‘Donate Now’ button below. Your help makes more projects like the Garden At Magnolia possible.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Kimball
Executive Director
David A. Jay
Interim Chair and Treasurer of the Board
ps. We are currently reviewing fourteen new community projects for 2020!
Doubling our annual gifts this year would mean we could accept all of them. Help us reach our goal of $75,000 for individual donations. And thank you for supporting COGdesign.
* Our first twenty-five donors will receive a hand-picked selection of NATIVE PLANT SEEDS including: echinacea (cone-flower), asclepius (butterfly weed), solidago (goldenrod), and aster. Freeze over winter, plant in spring.
Project Showcase, Wednesday, Oct. 2nd
Join us for our upcoming Project Showcase. Please RSVP so we can keep track of how many folks are coming: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cogdesign-project-showcase-tickets-71518869865
Take our survey! [image: Abolition Row Park plan: Heather Heimarck & Barbara Conolly]
Happy summer to all! If you haven’t had a chance to respond to our Spring Appeal we hope you will now! And we’d love it if you’d fill out our short survey on growing food in greater Boston. Feel free to send it along to friends who might be interested.
Did you know that 75% of our current projects are related to urban agriculture? Whether we’re actually designing the space for raised beds, or designing an outdoor ‘room’ for gathering, teaching or relaxing, COG is actively engaged in helping communities in Mattapan, Lowell, Allston and Dorchester (Upham’s Corner and Franklin Field neighborhoods) grow food. We would love to know what your experience is growing food in and around Boston!
COG survey in English. Encuesta COGdesign: Cultivando comida en Boston
We’ve had a busy Spring. The Plant Sale in Lincoln was a great success. Our Annual Meeting was short, informative and got the job done. We’re looking ahead to an exciting year of programs, projects and fundraising events. Three new Board members have joined in the last few months: Ricky Guerra, Michelle Moon and Hadley Berkowitz. We’ve had to say farewell to two dedicated members of the Board, who’ve each served two consecutive terms of 3 years: Terese D’Urso and Chair, Karen Clay. On June 10 we welcomed a new Board Chair, Ellan Siegel and a new Clerk, Hadley Berkowitz! And we’re grateful for David Jay staying on in the position of Treasurer.
Stay tuned for information on the COG project Showcase in September and a practice bike ride in October as we plan for a 2020 Bicycle Tour of project sites in Boston!