With the Love Your Block mini-grant applications well underway, Columbia Housing and Neighborhood Services will host a series of application assistance events starting early next week.

The mini-grants of up to $2,500 will support projects in central and northeast Columbia neighborhoods. This could include creating community gardens, tree planting, public art projects, minor home repairs and neighborhood pride and identification.

Grant applications are available online at como.gov/volunteer or at the city’s Housing and Neighborhood Services Department, 11 N. Seventh St. They are due by March 21.

City staff will also be available to discuss mini-grants 9 a.m. to noon March 15 during the Community Summit at City Hall, 701 E. Broadway.

Love Your Block is funded by the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation at Johns Hopkins and is intended to provide financial support to neighborhood groups, organizations, schools and nonprofits who are supporting quality of life for central and northeast neighborhoods, particularly those in qualified census tracts, the city said. Columbia is one of 16 cities in the 2024-2026 cohort, and the first city in Missouri to participate in Love Your Block.