Queens Community Improvement Nonprofit Goes Global

JAMAICA, QUEENS -- Alicia White started Project Petals with a vision to turn her hometown of Jamaica into the clean, developed community she believed it could be. She wanted to see less trash on the ground and more youth resources.

Three years later, what started out as a local nonprofit has expanded to projects across the city in Harlem and, most recently, across the globe in Africa. Project Petals in October launched its latest Youth Builders Program in Uganda, teaching young people about the environment and how to use it to develop their communities, White told Patch.

"It helps them not only to understand the environment, but to become better business leaders in using it as well," White said.

Project Petals began in Jamaica as a community development and environmental organization focused on revitalizing low-income communities with little resources. The idea behind its Youth Builders Program program is the same overseas as it is at home: Help young people envision where they want their community to be, and give them the tools to help get it there.

"I started Project Petals mainly because of the lack of resources in my area when I was growing up," White said. "We didn’t have the best trash removal and there weren't a lot of not outdoor programs. I created Project Petals to create what I wanted to see there."

Now, aside from working on community-wide environmental projects, Project Petals offers resources like tools, connections and funding to young people who want to do the same. The nonprofit's Youth Builders Program offers educational workshops to kids in grades 5-12, connecting them with architects, urban planners, engineers and designers.

"They'll describe what they want to change in the community and speak to these professionals from different industries in community building, so they get to learn what it means to do that," White said.

Within the last year, Project Petals has grown to include projects in Harlem and workshops throughout New York City, White said. She'd always hoped the nonprofit, part of the United Nations Major Group For Children and Youth, would expand internationally.

Earlier this year a young person from Uganda contacted Project Petals, saying he wanted to bring more youth programs to his country, White said. She decided to expand there in hopes of teaching local youth about the environment and how to harness the country's agricultural boom.

Project Petals - whose funds come in through grants, donations and sometimes White's own pockets - sends supplies, reading materials and other resources for the youth builders program to Uganda.

"There’s virtually no fundings for this over there, so a lot of the resources we give them are the only resources they have," White said. "We're trying to get more funding so they can have better supplies."

But the nonprofit's overseas work likely won't end in Uganda. White said she hopes to expand to more countries throughout Africa and, eventually, India. She particularly wants to bring the program to young girls in areas where female education isn't a priority.

The idea may seem like a lofty goal for some, but it feels well within arms reach to White, who said years ago she never thought she would have her own nonprofit.

"It was just an idea, and it started with just a project," White said. "That project snowballed into an organization."

Lead photo by Gerold Shellbair. Project Petals Executive Director Alicia White speaks to a classroom of students for the nonprofit's Youth Builders Program.