Environmental News

Winners Of GILT’s Environmental Awards Describe Their Work

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Friends and family listen as award winners describe their work at the O'Hara Nature Center (photo by Jasena Sereil)

October 22, 2025

On Sunday, October 19^th, the Greater Irvington Land Trust (GILT) celebrated the recipients of their 2025 Community Grant awards, issued last April to a variety of groups across the Rivertowns. In April, six grants, which in aggregate totaled $9,015.26, represented an increase over the total amount of Community Grants made in 2024.

For Sunday’s event, each of the Grantees were asked to do a short presentation about their project and how it positively impacted their communities. Those Grantees are:

Students at Irvington High School/Changing Forest Program/ CJ Reilly. This project, by the students in the Changing Forest Program, is to expand the existing sustainable shiitake mushroom cultivation program using repurposed invasive trees for student-led groups working under CJ Reilly’s supervision. GILT provided funding in the amount of $515.26. (Principal Grantee contact is CJ Reilly and Irvington High School Student Max Bloom .maxbbloom@gmail.com)

Elizabeth Tucker/Livable Tarrytowns. This project is to construct a new trail through the woodlands west of the Tappan Hill School, a Tarrytown public school for first graders and kindergartners, that will provide students and teachers access to this area. GILT provided funding in the amount of $2,000.(Principal Grantee contact is Elizabeth Tucker. tucker.ej@gmail.com)

Christopher Ross/Zion Episcopal Church. This project is to create a native woodland garden on the Church’s property adjacent to the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail and south of Cedar Street. GILT provided funding in the amount of $500.(Principal Grantee contact is Christopher Ross. rossc1637@gail.com)*
“Irvington Green Team/Restoration Project of the Gardens at the Irvington Historical Society. This project originally was to restore a part of the OCA north of Main Street by planting deer-resistant local ecotypes after removal of 20+ ailanthus altissima trees (the tree of heaven). Unfortunately, despite the correct treatment of the trees by the specialists on invasive species from the Lower Hudson PRISM, the trees started heavily resprouting, and a new round of application of herbicides needed to be used. The Irvington Green Team decided to use the GILT funding to restore the gardens at the Irvington Historical Society on Main Street, where volunteers removed non-native invasive plants such as English ivy, porcelain berry, and vinca minor, and installed native plants to help local pollinators. The garden was designed by the horticulturalist Peter Strom. GILT provided funding in the amount of $2,000.”.(Principal Grantee contact is Jasena Sareil. envirfriendlyjs@gmail.com*
Matthew Scott-Hansen/Dobbs Ferry Conservation Board. This is a project to expand a native plant pollinator garden in Chauncey Park in Dobbs Ferry and install a permanent, deer-proof fence. GILT provided funding in the amount of $2,000. (Principal Grantee contact is Matthew Scott-Hansen. matthew.andreas.scotthansen@gmail.com)*
Teresa Janevic/Irvington Girl Scout Troop 1719. This is a project proposed by the Irvington Girl Scouts, working with the Irvington High School Environmental Club, to develop a more sustainable program for keeping the area around Split Rock in the Irvington Woods cleaner and free of glass and litter. GILT provided funding in the amount of $2,000.(Principal Grantee contact is Troop Leader Teresa Janevic tjanevic@gmail.com )

In addition to these presenters, CJ Reilly, the Director of the O’Hara Nature Center (ONC), spoke about his work in the Irvington Woods and specifically about the new after-school programming he has created at the ONC for high school students, middle school students, and kids in the 3^rdand 4^th grades. Ali Glueck, a junior at Irvington High School, spoke about her Little Leaf Project, under which kindergartners at Dows Lane have planted red maple seedlings in a garden at Dows Lane, which will be replanted in the Irvington Woods when those kids move up to the Main Street School. GILT has separately funded this Project.

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About 50 to 60 people were there to hear each of these speakers and to enjoy the beautiful ONC grounds and the apple cider, donuts, and apples provided by GILT.

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