{shortcode-66201ef5cf0c94500afdae9d900c527982651da6}

The City of Cambridge allocated over $1 million to seven city improvement projects in its annual Participatory Budgeting process Friday.

Winning projects, nearly all of which each earned more than 3,000 votes from Cambridge residents, included improved seating and shade in public parks, a mobile recycling center, electric vehicle chargers, and more.

Participatory Budgeting — established in 2014 — is a process in which Cambridge residents vote on allocating a part of the city’s budget. All residents aged 12 and older, including non-citizen residents, are eligible to engage in the months-long process, from idea development to voting on final proposals.

During the second week of March, residents voted on their top five choices out of 20 available project options.

One of the winning projects, “Welcome Baby Boxes for New Parents,” received $60,000 to support new parents by providing households with mail-in coupons for baby formula or diapers, in addition to general parenting support through the Center for Families.

The committee of volunteer residents in charge of developing project proposals received numerous requests from residents for support for first-time parents, such as free formula, baby food, and diapers, according to Melissa L. Liu ’23, ​​Cambridge’s Participatory Budgeting and Engagement Coordinator.

“This baby boxes idea is such a smart and exciting way to put it all together, especially tapping into existing city resources,” Liu said. “This is a really good example of a PB project addressing a specific problem area.”

Another funded project will provide $150,000 for high school clubs at The Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and aims to increase the reach of CRLS’s community-oriented extracurriculars and clubs.

“Many of our clubs go to directly helping the Cambridge community, so not only are you funding clubs, you’re funding programs that go back into the community,” Olive Perotta, a senior at CRLS, said.

One organization that will benefit from the new funding at CRLS is Club 4, a volunteer service organization that serves the Harvard Square homeless shelter.

CRLS senior Chanho Lee, who is a co-president of the club, said that the club depends on donations for groceries and that the Participatory Budget funding will allow them to focus on making “even better fulfilling meals for the unhoused guests.”

“I think the bottom line is now we can take risks and we can grow, we don’t have to be confined to such a tight budget,” Perotta said. “That’s really exciting for a bunch of clubs.”

Other projects focus on improving city infrastructure. For example, the project “Slower Speeds for Safer Streets” won $250,000 to install 48 speed humps on side streets across Cambridge, aiming to enhance road and pedestrian safety.

This year, Cambridge Participatory Budgeting staff expanded their outreach with college students, partnering with Harvard Undergraduate Urban Sustainability Lab to actively engage students on campus in the voting process and increase awareness of the proposed projects.

“In past cycles, university students have always been eligible to be a part of it. But it’s a challenge to get folks to engage with the city that they’re in beyond just the university,” Liu said.

“The things that end up being chosen are things that Harvard students would probably be big fans of happening,” Johnny H. Perkins ’28, a board leader of the HUUSL Cambridge Civic Task Force, said.

Liu said she is a proponent of initiatives like the Participatory Budget because it allows for students to engage with the city they live in.

“It’s been home for four years, right? There’s no reason why they shouldn’t try to make it that way,” she said.

— Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer.