Pollution Prevention Institute provides grants statewide

Kerry Feltner//May 22, 2017//

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The New York State Pollution Prevention Institute has named 10 statewide recipients—including one Rochester organization—of its 2017-2018 Community Grants Program.

P2I will provide some $200,000 for local environmental initiatives, officials said. The institute is sponsored by the state Department of Environmental Conservation through the Environmental Protection Fund. P2I is led by Rochester Institute of Technology’s Golisano Institute for Sustainability.

The Community Grants Program is in its 10th year of operation. It gives nonprofit organizations and local governments both financial and technical assistance for projects that promote and implement pollution-prevention practices at the community level. To date, the program has supported 100 protects in the state with grants totaling $1.5 million.

“The Community Grants Program encourages partnerships that provide education and outreach aimed at making New York State more sustainable,” said Charles Ruffing, P2I’s director. “The goal is to connect with communities across the Empire State by providing much needed financial and technical support for programs and initiatives at a grassroots level.”

The winning proposals including one for Center for Environmental Initiatives: The Watershed Education and Outreach project will develop programming in Rochester. The programming includes pollution-prevention, water-based educational programming, including a summit for educators and education stakeholders to share management practices that will reduce and prevent pollutants at their source

The other grants were for:

Home Headquarters Inc.,
The Buffalo Zoo,
Huntington Breast Cancer Action Coalition,
Radix Ecological Sustainability Center’s Community Compost Initiative,
New York State Business Institute’s Business Leadership on Safer Materials project,
Ad Action Org’s Road Salt Pollution Prevention,
Clean and Healthy NY’s Pollution Prevention in the Child Care Setting,
Hudson Valley Regional Council’s Feeding the Hudson Valley and
Children’s Environmental Literacy Foundation Citizen Science in New York City School Communities.

“We congratulate all of this year’s awardees,” Ruffing said. “Their work is vital to our ongoing mission to provide a statewide, comprehensive program of solutions for complex environmental programs.”

A request for applications is typically announced in the fall. Go to http://www.rit.edu/affiliate/nysp2i/community-programs/community-grants for information.

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