Text is by Lindsay Campbell from Who Takes Car of New York?

Stewards are agents of change 

The power of civic environmental stewardship groups comes from their ability to create lasting change through direct action, management, education, and advocacy. Beyond environmental benefits, civic environmental stewardship groups provide opportunities for people to get to know one another and beautify their community in the process. These actions create a sense of social connection and a feeling of ownership and place attachment. Stewardship groups work on everything from restoring New York City’s oyster population, to protecting natural areas from development, to helping women get outside to exercise and form empowering friendships and civic ties. Taken together, these efforts can collectively transform our environment and communities.

Stewards respond to disturbance 

Stewardship is one of the ways that communities respond to social-ecological disturbances and stressors, including both disinvestment and gentrification, as well as climate change and its attendant weather extremes. This pattern has repeated over time here in New York City, with stewardship groups forming in response to the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, September 11th, and Hurricane Sandy. The act of caring for local places can transform not only the physical environment, but also our relationships to those places, and, perhaps most importantly, our relationship to each other. It is this shared sense of trust and reciprocity that serves as a building block for the radical changes that are required to steer our cities toward a more just and sustainable future.