Green spaces include more than just playgrounds, walking trails, and picnic tables. Green spaces help bring communities together, and they have many benefits for the well-being of the people they serve.
By collaborating with arts, humanities, faith and other community partners and hosting its annual festival, Spirit & Place has been a catalyst for community engagement for nearly three decades by creating and supporting dynamic events. And with the emergence of green spaces around Indianapolis, Spirit & Place hopes these spaces will continue to bring the community together.
“Spirit & Place’s community partners have consistently created festival events that focus on the power, joy and community aspects of nature and green spaces,” said Erin Kelley, Spirit & Place’s program director.
What are green spaces?
According to the World Health Organization, green spaces are classified as “all urban areas covered with vegetation of any kind.” There is a wide variety of different green space types, from large parks to community gardens to small open spaces around cities.
Why are green spaces important?
Green spaces can improve both physical and mental well-being. Green spaces encourage exercise and provide good air quality, which reduces the risk of many heart and respiratory diseases. They also improve cognitive function and reduce depression and anxiety symptoms, according to a study from North Carolina State University.
Green spaces also have benefits beyond health: they create safer environments and help reduce the impacts of climate change. According to the United Nations, green spaces with small or large bodies of water can mitigate extreme temperatures and reduce the impact of the urban heat island effect.
According to a report by the Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, trees planted in these green spaces can also provide shade, which helps cool the areas and efficiently reduces heating and cooling costs.
Green spaces in Indianapolis
According to Indy Parks and Recreation, Indianapolis has more than 11 acres of green space. USA Today even named Indianapolis one of the 50 cities with the most green space.
Green spaces are also considered third spaces, places where people can come together and socialize. Third spaces are vital to communities because they provide a place to relax and socialize that isn’t work or home. Third spaces also encourage community interaction and engagement, which is a key principle of Spirit & Place’s mission.
Every year, more and more green spaces are created in the Indianapolis area. Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, one of Spirit & Place’s community partners, is one of the many organizations trying to meet the need for more green space.
Keep Indianapolis Beautiful (KIB) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and protecting Indianapolis’s environmental areas. Jeremy Kranowitz, President and CEO of Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, has partnered with Spirit & Place to present events such as DEEP ROOTS 2020.
This event brought together numerous religious leaders to share perspectives from their spiritual traditions and invited participants to encounter nature through the lens of faith.
“We (KIB) have a green space program and it focuses on transforming vacant or abandoned properties into vibrant community spaces,” Kranowitz said.
To this end, KIB has organized three interfaith tree planting events where leaders and followers of different religions met to plant trees in local parks. KIB has helped create at least a dozen green spaces near places of worship to promote faith-environmental integration.
KIB has created over 200 green spaces through its various programs. Kranowitz and the KIB team have transformed old parking lots into butterfly gardens, abandoned RV parks into playgrounds, and unused areas into orchards.
“The goal is to create oases of nature where everyone can get involved and enjoy a higher quality of life,” Kranowitz said.
Green spaces are vital to the well-being of urban areas. They provide many benefits to residents and the surrounding environment, but maintaining these spaces requires people willing to invest in their care.
Spirit & Place and its partners want to make more people aware and educate them about the benefits of green spaces. Spirit & Place is already looking forward to 2025, when they will hold their annual festival with the theme of “nature” to mark their 30th anniversary.
“I can’t think of a single festival year where there wasn’t an event centered around a green space or held in a green space!” Kelley said. “These shared natural spaces are important to artists, people of faith, neighbors… everyone. They bring us together by providing both joy and moments of reflection.”
