Nominations Now Open for the Fourth Annual Yolanda Garcia Community Planner Award

The Yolanda Garcia Community Planner Award (YGCP) acknowledges the hard-working leaders of grassroots, community-based planning. The award was created to commemorate Yolanda Garcia, a community activist in the South Bronx. Under Garcia’s leadership, the residents of Melrose challenged the city, created an alternative to an urban renewal plan, and transformed a neighborhood. The organization created by Garcia, We Stay/Nos Quedamos, is bringing that community’s vision to life through planning, design, construction, and programming.

Since 2007, the Municipal Art Society Planning Center has awarded this honor to grassroots community-based planners including Elizabeth Yeampierre , executive director of United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park (UPROSE), and Jeanne DuPont , executive director of the Rockaway Waterfront Alliance. Last year’s winner, Fran Goldin is a founding member of the Cooper Square Committee and a lifelong advocate for the Lower East Side.

MAS will accept nominations online for the 2010 YGCP Award now through July 30, 2010. To learn more about the YGCP Award and for a printed copy of the nomination form, please click here.