Three RI organizations given EPA grants

Three projects in Rhode Island were awarded grants supporting healthy, livable and safe communities. The total EPA funding for the three efforts is nearly $70,000.

“Investing in local environmental health is an investment in our children and their future,” said Robert W. Varney, regional administrator of EPA’s New England office.

The EPA grants are being given to the Southside Community Land Trust, the Southern Rhode Island Conservation District and Groundwork Providence. The three groups are each involved in work to help improve the quality of life for local residents. The grants will fund the following projects:

Southside Community Land Trust is being awarded $30,000 under an EPA regional Healthy Community grant. The organization has designed a program called “Healthy Soil-Healthy Food Through Urban Agriculture Project” that will provide comprehensive education and training to low-income urban gardeners, youth and the general public to assess lead pollution, improve urban garden soils and grow food safely using IPM (integrated pest management) methods.

Southern Rhode Island Conservation District, also the recipient of a $30,000 EPA Health Community grant, will implement a project called “Three Sisters, Many Tribes, One People.” This effort is also designed to teach sustainable urban food production strategies, but will specifically target working with the urban Indigenous American community of Providence.

Groundwork Providence is receiving an EPA environmental education grant of $9,497. With this money, the group will work to promote green space and work with underserved high school youth to implement sustainable tree stewardship programs for elementary and middle school students and neighborhood groups around the schools where they live.

Healthy Communities Grants are targeted to invest action in environmental justice areas of potential concern, places with high risks from toxic air pollution, service sensitive populations, and/or are urban areas.

More information on EPA New England’s Healthy Community Grants is available
at: http://www.epa.gov/ne/eco/uep/grants_2005hc.html .