Advancing Healthy, Thriving, and Resilient Communities

Groundwork supports local leaders and community-driven efforts to reuse brownfields as parks and trails, greenspace and other amenities. Through long-term, sustained engagement, this program creates healthy, thriving, and resilient communities for all by:

  • Changing places: transforming underutilized land and waterways into community assets like parks, trails, and community gardens.
  • Changing lives: providing leadership development and workforce training opportunities for young people.
  • Changing systems: building connections between community members and local leadership to increase resident involvement in projects and programs.  

Groundwork unites the expertise and resources of three leading national organizations—the National Park Service - Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program; Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization; and Groundwork USA—to help local communities achieve their specific goals for improving their neighborhoods.

Groundwork transformation
What We Do

Learn how National Park Service partners with the EPA to support the national nonprofit Groundwork USA and 21 locally led Groundwork Trusts.

Groundwork Trust Map
Groundwork Trusts

Check-out how the 21 Groundwork Trusts are changing places, changing lives, and changing systems in cities across the United States.

Groundwork volunteers
Become a Groundwork Trust

Explore the process of becoming a Groundwork Trust.

Last updated: January 22, 2025

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