Grandma's Creek Watershed Improvements is a community-initiated project that aims to help protect Grandma’s Creek, a small stream in the Barcroft community that enters Four Mile Run at the W&OD trail. The project includes:
- Green Street rain gardens to capture, filter and absorb stormwater runoff,
- Watershed educational activities for school students, families and the community,
- Tree planting with the neighborhood, Tree Stewards and EcoAction Arlington,
- Partnership with Barcroft Elementary School and outreach to historically underserved populations who live in the Barcroft and Columbia Pike area.
Grandma’s Creek got its name from hot summer days in the early 1900s, when the local Marye children and their grandmother would walk up the railroad tracks for picnics in the cool woods next to the stream. A century later Barcroft residents continue to call it Grandma's Creek.