Keep Oakland Beautiful paved the way for several new and newsworthy accomplishments in 2024. A glimpse into the year includes:

• Commissioning the blue dragon mural created by 333 Arts at 1745 International Blvd
• KOB Board Chair Christina being featured on the KAB Do Beautiful Things podcast
• Gathering 100+ volunteers & removing 50 bags of litter at our Earth Day Lake Merritt cleanup
• Hosting our biggest Earth Day ‘After Party’ to date
• Hitting a homer with 100+ volunteers and 1,000lbs of litter removed at the inaugural Oakland Ballers Litter League
• Planting 85 trees with 70+ volunteers at our KOB x Blue Shield corporate engagement event
• Awarding over $14,000 in Community Grants to 15 projects across Oakland and celebrating awardees with a mixer held at Melrose Library (pictures below!)
• Distributing 3000+ bulbs during Daffodil Days

Previously known as Small Grants, the Community Grant program is a mainstay KOB program that is run every year. Congratulations to these 15 projects that have been awarded a grant for 2024. Please read below to learn more about the impact these projects have in neighborhoods all around Oakland.

Eastmont Hills Utility Boxes

• Project Description: The purpose is to transform utility boxes at neighborhood corners into vibrant pieces of art and incorporating succulent plants. This project aims to enhance the area, deter blight, and combat the Broken Window Theory in East Oakland, inspiring the community to take pride in and care for shared spaces. Local artists will be partnered with to bring this vision to life.
• Neighborhood: Eastmont Hills

UNA USA East Bay Chapter and Save the Trees for Oakland

• Project Description: The City of Oakland Tree Services has planted trees in several parks, but ongoing maintenance is needed to ensure their survival through the hot and dry summer of 2024. To support this, the UNA East Bay Chapter and Trees for Oakland are partnering to host three monthly events across three parks, focusing on weeding, mulching, and watering to keep the trees healthy and thriving.
• Locations: Arroyo Viejo Park, William "Bill" Patterson Park/Brookfield Park, Columbian Gardens Park

Melrose Library Garden Expansion 

• Project Description: Encouraged by the community's enthusiastic response to the initial rose and medicinal garden investments at the Melrose Branch Library, the project will now expand these gardens and finalize the perimeter landscaping. The roses bring beauty and vibrancy to Foothill Ave, while the medicinal garden supports community programming. Adding native and drought-tolerant plants will enhance the perimeter landscaping, creating a welcoming entrance to the library’s backyard. Completing and maintaining these gardens will foster ongoing community engagement and showcase the historic charm of this Carnegie Library.
• Neighborhood: Melrose

Bushrod Park Community Garden

• Project Description: The project aims to construct a small greenhouse to distribute seed starts to the community, cultivate our plants, and provide a relaxing garden space for children and adults to enjoy the garden. This initiative will benefit community gardeners and those interested in sustainable growing practices. The greenhouse will enhance public engagement by facilitating the gifting of native plants and vegetables grown from seeds and supporting low-cost gardening, a significant focus within the community.
• Neighborhood: Bushrod

Mosswood Community Garden

• Project Description: The project will aim to provide fresh foods for public picking and eating, and enhance the sustainability practices of the Mosswood Community Garden. Located in Mosswood Park, this garden is maintained by local volunteers and is part of Oakland's Community Garden Program. The project will replace the original passionfruit vine and plant a new kiwifruit vine, inviting park visitors to pick the fruit growing through the fence. To reduce water usage, the garden will adopt olla clay pots, and improve on-site composting by acquiring a tumbler-style composter to minimize organic waste.
• Neighborhood: Mosswood

Melrose Community Garden

• Project Description: The aim of this project is to enhance the garden in collaboration with Fremont High School. The project includes installing a new small fence around the garden, adding a table (with materials funded by the organizers and crafted by Fremont HS), and commissioning a local artist to create a "vine" artwork on the sidewalk. This will make the path to the garden more enchanting, especially for the students of Horace Mann Elementary School.
• Neighborhood: Melrose

Phoenix Rising Peace Park Beautification Project

• Project Description: This Adopt a Spot is a cherished haven for the community, where residents and children frequently enjoy the garden. Neighborhood potlucks are often held at the park to welcome new residents and build community. The garden needs new plantings to fill empty spots, replace aging plants, and further beautify the area, with neighbors assisting in the planting efforts.
• Neighborhood: Eastmont Hills

St. Louis Vet Beautification

• Project Description: The aim is to transform an area with unrealized potential into a beautifully refurbished planted space with a colorful wall behind it. Although on private property, the site is entirely public-facing and adjacent to a busy section of sidewalk next to the branch library. The community will benefit from the visible enhancement of this spot, promoting a sense of well-being and neighborhood beauty. In recent years, the Dimond area has experienced increased crime and many shuttered businesses, impacting its appearance and sense of safety. Dimond Improvement Association (DIA) is determined to reverse this trend. Collaboration with a commercial property and business owner is a key aspect of this beautification project, which could serve as a model for similar initiatives at other properties in the Dimond area.
• Neighborhood: Dimond District

Eastmont Pocket Planter Gardens

• Project Description: A community landscaping project focused on sidewalk planters can draw inspiration from the principles of pocket parks. The project aims to enhance the Eastmont Neighborhood, promote community engagement, and contribute to environmental sustainability.  The project will begin by identifying suitable locations along the sidewalks near vacant lots where planters can be installed without obstructing pedestrian traffic. The planters will feature a mix of native and drought-resistant plants, ensuring sustainability and reducing water consumption. Additionally, each planter may be equipped with solar path lights to improve street lighting. These small green spaces will transform unused or underutilized areas into vibrant communal environments, enhancing the neighborhood's aesthetic appeal and fostering a sense of community.
• Neighborhood: Eastmont

CalTrans Planting Adoption Extension

• Project Description: A few years ago, the neighborhood coalition adopted the off-ramp at the 580 EB exit at High Street for planting. By installing drought-tolerant and native plants, they have beautified the area and prevented it from becoming a homeless encampment, as the site was previously used in this manner despite being unsafe and unsuitable. Extending the planting adoption will enhance the area's attractiveness, increase fire safety, and prevent camping.
• Neighborhood:  Laurel, Allendale, and Maxwell Park ("LAMP")

Rainbow 27Y Parklet

• Project Description: This project aims to add three street trees around a parklet on Bancroft Ave. This section of Bancroft Ave in East Oakland is bereft of trees. The plan is to reclaim a portion of it by planting three City of Oakland-approved California native street trees around the perimeter of the parklet.  
• Neighborhood: Seminary

Rooftop Refurbishment & Raised Bed Mending

• Project Description: The grant funding will be used to revitalize planting beds at the Bottoms Up Community Garden. This includes replacing and resizing deteriorating raised beds, repairing and amending soil, improving irrigation, and planting the rooftop garden, along with adding perennial flowering plants to the street-view perimeter beds. The raised beds will be shortened by three feet to widen the path and enhance accessibility for individuals with different mobility needs, while also protecting food production. The rooftop garden refurbishment aims to activate more food-producing areas and create an inviting street view. Perennial flowering plants on the perimeter beds will engage neighbors year-round. The revitalization is expected to be completed within four months, with each goal addressed individually over three weeks.
• Neighborhood: South Prescott

Lincoln Square Park Alice Street Alley Improvement Project

• Project Description: This project aims to improve blighted landscape wells in a high-traffic pedestrian alley adjacent to a school and park in downtown Oakland Chinatown. Community benefits include 1) engaging neighborhood youth in a creative art project to promote community stewardship and connection to the park, 2) beautifying a highly visible area in the public park that is currently an eyesore, 3) reducing litter traps by elevating tree wells to sidewalk grade or slightly above and improving drainage, 4) dramatically reducing weed growth by installing filter fabric, colorful pavers, and compacted granite sand, and 5) serving as a model for other areas in the park and city, inspiring further community action.
• Neighborhood: Chinatown

48th Avenue Beautification

• Project Description: The project is aimed to build billboards that will cover a dilapidated fence, spanning the 150+ ft fence along 48th Ave. Different artists will be commissioned to create murals on these billboards. Previously commissioned murals on this block have attracted people who come to photograph and video the art. This initiative aims to reduce the area's threatening demeanor and contribute to keeping this corner of Oakland beautiful.
• Neighborhood: Fairfax, Maxwell Park

Clinton / San Antonio Friendly Neighborhood

• Project Description: The project involves establishing planter boxes along E 8th Street, E 11th Street, and E 11th Ave to enhance neighborhood aesthetics, prevent littering, and reduce crime. This initiative aims to make residents feel safe and comfortable with the addition of beautiful flowers, while also helping to deter homeless encampments and illegal activities. Neighbors will take turns inspecting the planter boxes daily as part of a neighborhood watch, improving the quality of life in the area for all community members.
• Neighborhood: Clinton, San Antonio

We are so excited to announce our 2023 Small Grant awardees - congratulations to these 13 projects! We look forward to the improvements you are making to your communities. Please read below to see the diversity of neighborhoods and projects that our funds have gone toward.

Chinatown Graffiti Removal and Mural

• Project Description: With a rise in crimes following the pandemic, a beloved church had been targeted in an arson recently, in addition to many instances of graffiti and vandalism. The project aims to clean up the church and create a new mural in place of the graffiti. In an effort to help the livelihoods and the outward appearance of Oakland Chinatown, the new artwork will be a benefit to its residents and the Asian American Pacific Islander community as a whole. The project will take away the harmful visual cues of violence, and instead bring a source of positivity. 
• Neighborhood: Chinatown

Courtland Spur Public Garden Expansion

• Project Description: Over the years this strip has fallen into disrepair and neglect with terraces rotting, irrigation system shut off, and invasive species overwhelming most of the garden area. The Garden Expansion will address disrepair and overgrowth, and will result in placement of new wood terracing, restoration of irrigation systems, reduction of invasive plant/overgrowth, and planting of environment- and community-friendly trees, plants and foliage.
• Neighborhood: Jefferson

Dimond Park Bathroom Mural Project

• Project Description: Retaining an artist to paint colorful murals on otherwise daunting, uninviting public bathrooms. Some children are afraid to use these restrooms and having more welcoming public restrooms will benefit all those who use the park.
• Neighborhood: Glenview

Glenn W. Daniel King Estate Open Space

• Project Description: Install and maintain bulletin boards with attached signs stating the name of the open space. The bulletin boards are needed for posting volunteer activity announcements, natural history information about the open space, and timely alerts about current wildfire danger. In addition, bulletin boards are a community space for other announcements, such as lost pets and found keys. Today there are visitors that do not know the name of the Open Space.
• Neighborhood: Oak Knoll

Harvest for the Hood at Verdese Carter Park

• Project Description: Beautification project consisting of hand decorated elevated garden beds and clay pots. These address the community's need for uplifting their physical space in order to uplift their socioeconomic status. This project accomplishes the need for a face-lift for this deep East Oakland neighborhood. The project offers open-space activities, the opportunity to engage with neighbors who want to grow flowers, herbs and produce, demonstrates free and low-cost ways to grow your own food, and adds an aesthetic quality to an urban area marred by concrete, buildings and homes covered in graffiti, blighted properties, encampments of unsheltered persons, and is inundated by illegal dumping
• Neighborhood: Cox

LAMP Welcome Garden

• Project Description: The High Street Coalition has transformed a neglected off-ramp that was previously covered in blight into a colorful drought-resistant garden. We hope our garden brings joy and serves as a 'Welcome' to our neighborhood to all who see it! But that's the problem- it's currently nearly entirely hidden from view by the 6-foot tall weeds surrounding it! With this grant, we hope to have a longer-term solution by extending the area of mulch as much as possible to suppress weeds.
• Neighborhood: Laurel, Allendale, and Maxwell Park ("LAMP")

Mandela Parkway Improvement & Plant Replacement

• Project Description: Replace missing, dying, or inappropriate illegally planted plantings with low-maintenance, drought-tolerant, native pollinators and to repair and/or maintain the irrigation.
• Neighborhood: West Oakland

Melrose Community Garden

• Project Description: Project goals include purchasing equipment, plants, and more fruit trees, creating new signage, including a mini library to have gardening and cooking books for all ages, and "engraving" a vine on the sidewalk as art coming from our garden door to each corner. We hope to have kids and adults enjoy the fruits of our labor by next year!
• Neighborhood: Melrose

Melrose Library Rose Garden

• Project Description: Adding a rose garden to the Melrose Library will draw people  and demonstrate pride in this green oasis located at a blighted intersection. The rose garden presents an opportunity for learning basic plant care and complements the library's gardening program. 
• Neighborhood: Melrose

Rainbow Community Group (NCPC 27Y)​ Parklet

• Project Description: Adding gabion boxes for seating and signage for the location of native live plants.
• Neighborhood: Seminary

Rancho San Antonio Beautification

• Project Description: Project goals include planting more trees, beautifying tree wells, acquiring planters for areas that cannot have a tree well, adding wrap around planters to beautify signage, painting a local utility box to prevent graffiti, and anti-coating the box to protect the mural. 
• Neighborhood: Rancho San Antonio

San Antonio in Bloom: Urban Gardening to Empower Neighbors

• Project Description: Plant two trees, add a bench by the bus stop w/ a planter, (the 40 bus is how people get in and out of the neighborhood, and they often have to stand for long periods of time), and install 20 planters across the three diverters (this prevents diverters from being moved and gives them a feel of being more integrated into the community).
• Neighborhood: San Antonio

Wood Park Community Restoration

• Project Description: Revegetate Sausal Creek with native plants and care for its surrounding areas through erosion control, increased community access to the creek, improved aesthetics and ecological health of the park for residents and visitors, and improved quality of accessible green space for Oakland. Project activities include assessing the health of planted natives, monitoring water quality and wildlife, observing changes in park use and access, and addressing ongoing needs.
• Neighborhood: Reservoir Hills