How the Green Team Took on Climate, Food, and Community Leadership

At Groundwork Lawrence, we talk a lot about the environment — soil health, tree canopy, green infrastructure, clean air, and water, but underneath all of it runs something that can’t be measured in acres or carbon offsets: the bonds that hold a community together when life gets hard.

This is a story about those bonds.

Amanda was a former counselor from our Urban Adventure program nearly a decade ago. She was the kind of person who showed up fully — for the young people she worked with, for her neighbors, and for this city. She lived with her husband and two young boys on Hancock Street, just across from the Hennessy School, in the heart of the community she loved.

When Amanda was diagnosed with colon cancer, her world — and her family’s world — changed completely. Medical appointments, treatments, uncertainty, and grief became the rhythm of daily life, and amid all of it, the front yard of their home had fallen into disrepair. Every landscaping company Amanda and her husband contacted quoted upwards of $2,000 — money that simply didn’t exist alongside mounting medical bills.

A mutual friend reached out and asked if Groundwork Lawrence could help by planting some trees.

The answer was an immediate yes.

What happened next is a testament to what the community can do when it decides to show up.

The GWL team moved quickly after receiving the call for support. Our team went out to assess the site and decided on what to do. On a sunny Friday morning, a group of neighbors, GWL staff, and supporters gathered at Amanda’s home with shovels, mulch, and purpose.

The collective didn’t come for recognition. They came because Amanda had given something to this community during her time with us, and this community wanted to give something back. Together, they transformed that front yard — planting trees, preparing the soil, and restoring a sense of care and dignity to the home where her family lives.

The work was completed the day before Amanda went back into the hospital, and unfortunately, two weeks later, she passed.

We hold that timeline close. Not because it makes the grief any lighter, but because it means something: that in one of her final weeks at home, Amanda could look out at her front yard and see that her community had not forgotten her. Her boys could see it. Her husband could see it. A small but real act of love, rendered in soil and roots and the labor of willing hands.

That is the power of community. It doesn’t wait for the perfect moment. It doesn’t ask whether the problem is large enough to warrant attention. It shows up — with what it has, when it’s needed — and it does the work.

Groundwork Lawrence was founded on the belief that environmental health and community health are inseparable. For over 25 years, we have worked alongside the residents of this city not as outsiders with resources, but as neighbors with a shared stake in what Lawrence becomes. We have planted trees, cleaned waterways, trained workers, and opened green spaces — but the constant in all of it has been relationship. Trust. Presence.

Amanda’s story is a reminder of why that matters.

We answered the call for her family. We will keep answering it — for every neighbor who reaches out, every family navigating the impossible, every community member who needs to know they are not alone.

That is the work. That has always been the work.

If you feel moved by Amanda’s story and want to support Groundwork Lawrence’s community programs, we invite you to get involved — as a volunteer, a donor, or simply a neighbor willing to show up when called.

— Lesly Melendez