DENVER-- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced the award of $91,000 to Wildlands Restoration Volunteers in Boulder, Colo. The award is being provided under EPA’s Environmental Education (EE) Grants Program which solicits proposals from eligible applicants for projects that promote environmental awareness and stewardship.
Wildlands Restoration Volunteers will use the EPA grant funds to provide service learning opportunities to a diverse set of high school age youth throughout Colorado’ s Front Range and engage them in leadership development activities, critical thinking, community-based action projects, and creative problem solving for the purpose of encouraging a lifelong environmental stewardship ethic. With locations in Boulder and Fort Collins, Wildlands Restoration Volunteers organizes thousands of volunteers each year to complete more than 100 conservation projects in Colorado and southern Wyoming. Projects range in length from a single day to a weekend or longer.
“Wildlands Restoration Volunteers provides the types of hands-on, service learning opportunities that can inspire young students for a lifetime,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. “EPA is proud to support environmental education and stewardship projects that will have a positive impact on Colorado’s valued wildlands and ecosystems.”
"EPA's support will help us expand our programming to ensure that more young people have access to meaningful experiences in nature and the opportunity to see firsthand their own capacity to make a powerful difference in their community," said Rachel Brett, Youth & Inclusiveness Director at Wildlands Restoration Volunteers.
Under the Environmental Education grants program, EPA has distributed between $2 million and $3.5 million in grant funding per year since 1992, for a total of approximately $68 million supporting more than 3,600 grant projects. This highly competitive grants program supports projects that increase public awareness about environmental issues and provide participants with the skills to take responsible actions to protect the environment. The program provides financial support for projects that design, demonstrate or disseminate environmental education practices, methods or techniques.
To learn more about Wildlands Restoration Volunteers, visit: https://www.wlrv.org/
To learn more about the grant winners, or to apply for future EE grant competitions, visit: http://www2.epa.govhttps://www.epa.gov/education/environmental-education-ee-grants.