Villa Animal Refuge

  • Location
    Bronx, New York
  • Status
    Active
  • Age Level
    Any Age

The Problem

The Villa Earth Buddies are working to make our small patch of the coastal Bronx more hospitable to local and visiting wildlife including migratory birds, oysters, bees, butterflies, and bats. In the meantime, members of our community can come together to share their skills and get to know each other in a multi-generational setting. Our students will benefit, learning practical skills, having fun together outdoors and becoming better stewards of the Earth.

Our Plan

We will first clean up! We need to remove tires that get washed up in our Indian kettle rock formation on the shore. We need to clean up trash that flies onto our property or gets left behind by students and faculty. We will remove invasive plants like poison ivy and neighboring ornamentals to make more room for our native plants like Juneberries and sassafras. Then we will add new ones like native grasses and blueberry bushes so our bird friends have snacks. We will add pollinator plants to support bees and butterflies and bat shelters. We are putting in 6 container gardens for our human friends too. We will grow edibles for the local food pantry and flowers for our neighbors in retirement homes. We have invited our civic association and neighbors to come garden with us too. We will celebrate with pizzas made with our homegrown ingredients at the end of the growing season.

Themes Addressed

  • term icon
    Clean Water
  • term icon
    Community Enhancement
  • term icon
    Wildlife

The Benefit

  • term icon
    People
  • term icon
    Animals
  • term icon
    Environment
About Roots & Shoots

We are nurturing the compassionate leaders of tomorrow.

Get To Know Our Model

New Report

Close