We have a long relationship with the New Haven Urban Resources Initiative (URI). As a grad student, Bill was an intern in their environment education program Open Spaces as Learning Places. And one of our first projects was to document a summer of the Community Greenspace program, a documentary that went on to be broadcast nationally through the public television series Natural Heroes. URI is a bridge between the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and the surrounding community, greening New Haven, while building capacity among community groups, and addressing issues of environmental justice.

URI and their parent organization - the Hixon Center for Urban Ecology - were both in need of website upgrades. Yale had recently mandated that all centers and programs use the Drupal content management system through their YaleSites initiative, so we were able to help URI and Hixon move their sites to Drupal through a redesign that improved the look and feel and added a new level of functionality to both sites.

One of the major features of the new URI website is a system for community foresters to log their activities with community groups - each time they participate in a tree planting or other activity they can enter what was planted and who was there, with an activity stream appearing on the Community Greenspace group's page. And at the end of the season, the interns have a report of accomplishments for each group.