Finding Common Ground on a Vacant Lot in Homewood
By: Katherine Chamberlain
GTECH, the Pittsburgh Marathon, FedEx Ground, Operation Better Block and Whole Foods Market work together to reclaim a vacant lot along the marathon route.
As a part of an annual partnership with the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon, GTECH and community partners work to activate one of the hundreds of vacant lots along the marathon route. This year, GTECH partnered with FedEx Ground and Operation Better Block to activate and program a lot along Frankstown Avenue.
To learn more about the project watch James Snow of GTECH and Kim Whigham of FedEx Ground talk about ReClaim the Route on Pittsburgh Today Live.
On April 24, 2015, fifty employees of FedEx Ground worked with GTECH to build out a garden for Operation Better Block’s Junior Green Corp. Not surprisingly, the communities with the most amount of vacant, blighted land have little to no youth educational activities with any environmental focus. The garden features built by FedEx Ground and GTECH will help address this gap by supporting the Junior Green Corp’s programming on sustainability.
To add to the festivities, Canstruction Pittsburgh and Whole Foods Market came out to the site on race day to build a one-of-a-kind structure made entirely of donated canned food while thousands of runners pass by the site. All canned food used during the construction of the structure were donated back to the Salvation Army food pantry for distribution.
