Volunteers Improving Neighborhood Environments (VINES)

VINES empowers people to improve their lives and communities through urban gardening and connecting urban consumers to rural farmers. The organization’s accomplishments include a community garden program featuring 18 gardens with more than 400 raised beds, an employment program, a build-a-garden program to install gardens at private homes, a farm-share program providing 200 boxes of produce weekly, a 2.25-acre urban farm program and a green thumb workshop series.

Binghamton’s first net-zero energy building will become a reality thanks to a $169,000 grant to install solar and geothermal heating and cooling systems on the facility. This 4,000-square-foot, 3-story office building is also designed using straw-bale construction — a green building method that uses bales of straw for insulation and is far more energy efficient than traditional construction. Long-lasting and pest-resistant, this construction method boasts a 2-hour commercial fire rating.

The straw-bale insulation with plaster finish is expected to help VINES lower its energy use by 50–80%, and will help its solar and geothermal systems work smarter — not harder — for decades to come.