Keep America Beautiful, the nation’s leading nonprofit that builds clean, green and beautiful communities, and Waste Management announces that $300,000 in 2015 Waste Management Think Green® Grants are being awarded to 39 Keep America Beautiful community-based affiliates and partner organizations across the country. This is the ninth year Waste Management and Keep America Beautiful have collaborated on community-based grant initiatives. During that time, Waste Management and Keep America Beautiful have awarded more than $1.3 million in grant monies to affiliates and partners in support of more than 205 community service projects and programs. “Through the support of Waste Management, Keep America Beautiful is able to provide our local affiliates and partner organizations with the resources to help people reduce waste and litter, recycle right, and protect the natural areas in which we live,” said Jennifer Jehn, president and CEO of Keep America Beautiful. “We look forward to seeing all of these important projects come to fruition thanks to the generosity of Waste Management’s Think Green Grant program.”
The merit-based grant program supports projects that are implemented to address local community needs. Among the 2015 Think Green Grant program recipients are:
- Keep Baton Rouge (La.) Beautiful: Keep Baton Rouge Beautiful <http://www.kbrb.org/> (KBRB) will host a “Waste in Place” Teacher Workshop, which will provide educational material to 20 local teachers. In addition, KBRB will recruit high school classrooms to adopt roads near their schools.
- Keep Georgia Beautiful: Keep Georgia Beautiful <http://www.keepgeorgiabeautiful.org/> will provide five mini-grants of up to $2,000 each from its Think Green Grant award for affiliates in Georgia to plant community orchards on publicly-accessible land. In turn, the community orchards will increase the local tree canopy and provide a source of local produce.
- Keep Montgomery County (Ohio) Beautiful: The Keep Montgomery County Beautiful <http://www.kmcbohio.org/> Think Green Grant will fund public education about the legal ramifications of illegal dumping, and provide Montgomery County citizens with tools to report illegal dumping.
- Keep York (Penn.) Beautiful: The Keep York Beautiful <http://www.keepyorkbeautiful.org/> Think Green Grant for a local organic, urban farming operation will address the complex interactions among nature, the economy and York County’s food system fostering an increase in community and home gardening, while promoting the use of native plantings.
“Keeping our communities clean and beautiful is what our company and Keep America Beautiful are all about,” said Waste Management Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Chief Legal Officer, Barry Caldwell. “The Think Green Grants program enables community organizations across the country to help improve their neighborhoods, towns and cities, and we gladly support that.” The Waste Management Think Green Grants are part of the environmental services company’s commitment to encourage the development and sustainability of environmental solutions that improve community environments.
For more information or a complete list of recipients of 2015 Waste Management Think Green Grants, visit www.kab.org.