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Read the press release here.

New Dutch Kills Community Garden Scores $20K Grant

By Jeanmarie Evelly | May 20, 2016 5:41pm | Updated on May 23, 2016 8:08am
 The vacant lot where the Windmill Community Garden is being built.
The vacant lot where the Windmill Community Garden is being built.
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Courtesy Jean Cawley

LONG ISLAND CITY — A group of Queens neighbors who are turning a vacant lot into a public garden won a $20,000 grant this week to further enhance the green space.

Windmill Community Garden is one of 16 projects across the country to receive funding in the "Parks Build Community" campaign, a contest from the National Recreation and Park Association and The Walt Disney Company to support neighborhood parks.

The winners were chosen by the public via online voting and write-in nominations during the month of April, according to a press release.

"It's very cool," said Jean Cawley the garden's vice president. "We were happy and a little surprised."

The group — which includes the Dutch Kills Civic Association, art collective Flux Factory and the nearby Growing Up Green Charter School — started organizing this winter to turn the lot on 29th Street between 39th and 40th avenues into a community garden, an effort to create more green spaces in the Dutch Kills neighborhood.

They were able to get a license to garden in the city-owned space under the Parks Department's GreenThumb program, and has also been working with nonprofit GrowNYC to begin planting at the site.

"We're really pleased with the space and how good it looks, and how much help we've gotten from different organizations," Cawley said.

They're still deciding what to specifically spend the grant money on, and plan to brainstorm ideas at their next membership meeting on Tuesday.

Anyone is welcome to become a garden member for the cost of $10 and three hours of volunteer work. For more information, visit the garden's Facebook page.