The volunteer service group ForColumbia is receiving a grant for a cleanup project in Hanover, a northeast Columbia neighborhood. It’s just one of the multiple projects in the Love Your Block program that’s focusing on communities that weren’t reached by last year’s grants.
Columbia’s Love Your Block grant program is back for a second year, awarding 10 grants to local community outreach and city beautification projects.
Program organizer Leigh Kottwitz said some of this year's grants aimed to fund projects in areas outside of the central city that could use resources and support.
“These are areas that the city has not had money to give to those neighborhood projects, and one of the great things about Love Your Block is it has allowed resources and also staff support to help make these projects happen,” Kottwitz said.
Love Your Block will not receive funding from the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins University next year.
Kottwitz said she hopes projects will continue in future years with support from the city government.
Jacob Richardson is a Love Your Block Fellow and offers support to grantees to see their projects through. He said the winners of each grant are chosen by a board of citizens with experience in Columbia communities.
“So that way they’re resident-focused,” Richardson said. “And so, the city’s coming in and picking who wins, and, you know, kind of deciding what we want to do. We let it be the residents.”
Funding for the Love Your Block program is provided by the Bloomberg Center in two-year cycles. Columbia was among fifteen other cities that received grant money between 2024 and 2026.
