Love Where You Live Greening Plan Evaluation

Client: Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (2022 - 2025)

Susannah Laramee Kidd & Beth Uzwiak, Co-Project Evaluators

Laramee Kidd and Uzwiak are currently collaborating with PHS to lead and design a community participatory strategy to measure the impacts of a three-year greening program for the Nicetown and Tioga neighborhoods of Philadelphia.  This “green vision” plan emerged from an in-depth collaboration between community members and leaders and established neighborhood health and wellness priorities.  As part of this visioning process, PHS is now piloting a new place-based model that focuses on long-term, neighborhood-driven transformation.  This model aims to connect community partners with technical assistance, materials, infrastructure, volunteers and other resources necessary to enact sustainable change.  The evaluators are partnering with the project team to identify and understand the impacts, successes and challenges of this project as it takes shape. 

As part of the evaluation planning process, Uzwiak and Laramee Kidd synthesized the existing research on the community impacts of greening along with outcomes articulated by community members into five mini theories of change and a draft theory of change overview diagram. This theory of change has guided data collection in year 2 of the plan and will feed into the final model of this new approach to work for PHS. Laramee Kidd and Uzwia currently working on the synthesis of learnings from the first three years of this greening effort and anticipate producing a public-facing StoryMap website, an internal model toolkit with recommendations, and a community-facing analog reporting materials.