Posted on October 27, 2008

National Audubon Society Announces First TogetherGreen Grants

The National Audubon Society has announced TogetherGreen Conservation Innovation grants totaling $1.4 million to forty-one projects in twenty-four states.

Launched in March with funding and volunteer support from Toyota, the five-year TogetherGreen initiative will provide funding to Audubon Society chapters working in partnership with other community groups to devise innovative approaches that engage individuals and communities in tackling environmental problems.

The largest grant was awarded to Audubon Pennsylvania for its work with more than a dozen partners around the state to help homeowners and renters create backyard havens for birds, wildlife, and people as part of the Audubon At Home in Pennsylvania project. Grants also were awarded to the Golden Gate Audubon Society in San Francisco to launch the Wetlands and Wildlands Project and the St. Petersburg Audubon Society in Florida to protect nesting birds in partnership with Eckerd College.

"A small amount of money can produce big results locally," said National Audubon Society president and CEO John Flicker. "The idea is to give our local Audubon centers around the country the incentive to forge partnerships, to bring in new partners. We can limit threat of pollution in communities, limit the threat of global warming, help underprivileged communities to preserve their local resources. We need to get everybody involved, engage people from every ethnic and racial community to help preserve the environment."