Supermarket
and Pharmacy

Jim Cassels Community Service Award

The Jim Cassels Award Committee wants to give away $1,500!

Each year, the Greenbelt Co-op Supermarket & Pharmacy gives a $1,500 grant to a group, organization or cooperative to initiate and implement a new project or activity in Greenbelt that fits the Jim Cassels service spirit.

Throughout his many years in the Greenbelt community, Jim Cassels was an outstanding cooperator. Whether helping local groups, mentoring new cooperatives, guiding the formation and realization of senior housing, or getting up at the crack of dawn to deliver newspapers in Green Ridge House, he was tireless in making Greenbelt the place we all love it to be.

Applications are available at the Customer Service Office, Consumer Corner or online.

Applications should be returned to the customer service office or submitted online by September 15. The award ceremony will be held at the Co-op’s annual meeting. Contact Donna Hoffmeister at 301-441-9377 or via email for more information.

Past Award Recipients:

2025 Greenbelt Recreation Arts

Greenbelt Recreation Arts' program set up a new arts space at the Springhill Lake Recreation Center to serve preschool art classes, the after-school program for grades 1-5, and adult meet-ups like the Needle Arts Group. There is no fee for these art activities. The project includes secure storage and essential art supplies.

2024 The Greenbelt Maskerspace

Greenbelt Makerspace opened in April, 2013 with the support of a Cassels award and has three projects which aim to cope with climate change by keeping items out of the landfill: educational workshops, quarterly repair cafes ($420 of the Cassels award is allocated to bike repair), tool-lending library (open Saturdays and Sundays).

2023 Random Unselfish Acts of Kindness: 

RUAK's ongoing initiative, the Bilingual PreK Story Hour, promotes early literacy among children aged
from birth to 5 years old on the second Friday of every month at the Springhill Lake Recreation Center,
from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The Greenbelt Library staff leads the children in a delightful mix of
storytelling, dancing, singing, and language lessons on colors and numbers in both English and Spanish,
designed to engage young minds and foster their reading ability. A sign-language interpreter assures
inclusivity. The library supplies books for the children to take home with them. The Jim Cassels
Community Service Award funds essential supplies and snacks for the program for the next 12 months,
benefiting 24 to 30 children each month.

2021 Reel and Meal: Since 2007 the Reel and Meal at the New Deal Cafe has screened high quality documentary films free and open to all about social justice issues on the third Monday of each month in Greenbelt, MD. Audiences especially appreciate the vigorous post-film discussions. Environmental issues, racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, domestic abuse, immigration, income inequality, health care and gun safety are some topics their films have covered. They continued operating throughout the pandemic virtually via zoom and started back up live at the café this spring, while maintaining a zoom connection.

2020 Prince George’s Community Collaborative Resolution Center conducted two classes via Zoom for Greenbelt residents called “Collaborative Listening for Relationship Building,” one in January for four weeks and one in April for four weeks.
The instructor, Tracee Ford, a professional mediator, had participants analyze real-life disagreements in terms of the topic, the feelings expressed and the values of the combatants.
The class presented an overview of the skills people need to analyze contentious issues and to defuse conflict.

2018 Greenbelt Association for the Visual Arts: Beech Tree Puppets (Ingrid and Ole Hass) performed the puppet show, "The Giant Turnip" based on a Ukrainian folk tale, for students at Greenbelt Elementary School (Pre-K - 5^th grade; approximately 600 students). Then all 4^th grade students (4-classrooms-125 students) created their own shadow puppets for 8 shadow puppet shows based on a Chinese folk tale for kindergartners through 2^nd grade during the week of the Chinese New Year. Finally, a group of 4^th grade students presented the show at The New Deal Cafe for the public.

2017 Eleanor Roosevelt High School Art Department: Eleanor Roosevelt High School had a free festival on April 21, 2018 in the Roosevelt Center and the New Deal Cafe that celebrates the art, music and drama projects of students. Christine Wilkin, who teaches art at Roosevelt, spearheaded the endeavor. Since Eleanor Roosevelt High School is located away from the town center, having the festival in Roosevelt Center helps the students to better share their accomplishments with the community. The student art show was on display in the New Deal Cafe for 2 months and performances took place on the stage of the café and in the Center. On April 21, the Greenbelt Community saw what Roosevelt students have to offer.

2016 Greenbelt's Green Team - the Zero Waste Circle: The Zero Waste Circle is a collaborative effort between Green Team volunteers and Public Works staff members focused on eliminating waste going to the landfill by promoting recycling and composting to the greatest extent possible. Our mission is to inspire individuals, organizations and the City of Greenbelt to reduce consumption, reduce waste going to the landfill, change the way in which resources are used, increase resource recovery efforts and change individual and community behaviors to lessen our negative impact on the earth. Our efforts include demonstration projects, educational efforts, legislative advocacy, and partnering with organizations, groups and individuals to encourage zero waste policies, goals, actions and behaviors.

2015 WAGS (Well-wishers of the Animals of the Greenbelt Shelter): 

is conducting 6 Animals Safety Workshops to help children and their parents identify a dog or cat's stress signals, to understand how to approach unfamiliar animals and to know what to do if approached by an unfamiliar dog off leash. Workshop attendees get materials developed by Your Dog's Friend, such as photos of dogs exhibiting the different types of body language: enjoyment, tolerance, and "enough already." In addition, WAGS is providing a variety of enrichment activities to the animals at the shelter, such as a special behavior training day for the dogs once a month.

2014 Alight Dance Theater: for a free performance of its latest work, Frontline: Women of a Forgotten War at the Greenbelt Community Center, 15 Crescent Road on Sunday, May 3, 2015 at 3:00. Frontline commemorates the challenges women from Maryland and D.C faced during the War of 1812. They will introduce, for instance, Mary Young Pickersgill, the seamstress credited with creating the Star Spangled; Sukey, a domestic servant of Dolley Madison who was known to be the first lady's constant companion during the war; and Kitty Knight, a folk heroine credited with saving homes in Georgetown, Maryland from being burned by British troops. Bedlam, a Bowie-based ensemble that specializes in American colonial vocal and instrumental music, provides the musical accompaniment.

There are activities for the audience before and after the performance. From 1:00 – 2:30 p.m. the costume designers will show the audience the hand-made period clothing used in the performance. From 4:00 – 5:00 p.m. the dancers will ask the audience to join them in a period social dance demonstrated in the show.

2013 GreenSTEMs of Club 125: to facilitate a Repair Café, a free meeting places to repair things (together). GreenSTEMS provides tools and materials to help you make any repairs you need. On clothes, furniture, electrical appliances, bicycles, crockery, appliances, toys, et cetera. You will also find repair specialists such as electricians, seamstresses, carpenters and bicycle mechanics. Visitors bring their broken items from home. Together with the specialists they start making their repairs.

2012 Friends of Still Creek: has a multi-dimensional project planned to engage children in meaningful, hands-on activities that will help educate them about the natural environment and their local watershed. The organization will partner with Greenbelt Elementary School, particularly the fifth grade classes, for a series of activities that are expected to have long-term impact. Fittingly, the first milestone of the Friends of Still Creek project is a Watershed Activities Day in which classes will take a walking field trip to their local stream to learn how people impact streams and discuss ways people can improve the health of their local waterways. The project also involves promoting recycling and repurposing objects. Students will learn about composting when they set up an indoor odorless worm compost system. In February, the students will put together raised garden beds at the school that will be planted with fast-growing vegetables later in the spring.

2011 Chesapeake Education, Arts, and Research Society (CHEARS): its Three Sisters Demonstration Gardens project will purchase equipment to provide Outdoor Classrooms and Provision of Raised Handicapped Gardening Tables at the Center Gardens, next to the Greenbelt Community & Adult Day Care Centers (ADCC).

2010 Greenbelt Association for the Visual Arts (GAVA): provided instruction and materials for local students to create backgrounds and characters out of cut paper for an animation video to commemorate Greenbelt’s 75^th anniversary in 2012.

The students created the 3-dimensional scenery, the characters and the script
for an animation film they are making for Greenbelt's 75th anniversary.

2009 Friends of the New Deal Cafe Arts (FONDCA) initiated the Eileen Peterson Youth Music Series to bring young musicians from local schools to new audiences in Roosevelt Center on Saturday afternoons in the spring of 2010. The Eileen Peterson Youth Music Series aimed to encourage local young musicians, by offering them the opportunity to bring their performances to the community beyond their school audiences.

2008 Greenbelt Tennis Association for its Community Kids' Clinic: 45 children from 7 -13 years of age took part in an 8-week, 1½ hour/session clinic in partnership with the Prince George's Tennis and Education Foundation. Most of the award money was used to pay for instruction and to purchase tennis rackets for the kids, many of whom would not have been able to participate otherwise.

2007 Greenbelt Climate Action Network purchased workbooks for the Carbon Neutrality Project. Once a week for five weeks two groups of eight GHI unit owners met in two members' homes to discuss how they could reduce their carbon footprint. We modeled a program called the Low Carbon Diet from the Empowerment Institute and customized their workbook for future use in GHI homes.

2006 Beaverdam Creek Watershed Watch Group purchased equipment needed for establishing a water quality monitoring program focused on macroinvertebrate sampling.  The program continues to this day with monitoring going on 4 times per year.