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The Bill James Environmental Grants, An Opportunity for Schools Involved in Environmental Education

by
Bill Whorton

The students at the Greenmount School weren’t the only ones who benefited from a Bill James Grant last year that funded an expansion of their vegetable gardens. The vegetables that were harvested last fall were enjoyed by the students, their families, and community at large. This grant provided the opportunity for low income youth to learn about the principals of sustainable gardening and encouraged a sense of stewardship and personal responsibility for the environment. The Garden Expansion Project stimulated a better understanding of environmental issues and helped the kids learn how a community garden can improve the neighborhood and provide locally produced foods.

The Bill James Grants are part of the Keep Maryland Beautiful Program administered by the Maryland Environmental Trust. Up to $1,000.00 is available to school groups, science and ecology clubs, and other non-profit youth groups for environmental education projects. Previous recipients have included:

  • The Pine Grove Middle School for its terrapin hatchlings project in partnership with the National Aquarium. Students, monitored, raised and released the hatchlings into their natural habitat.
  • Perryville High School for its project involving freshman students who constructed a gazebo, rain barrels, picnic tables and rain gardens.
  • Manchester Valley High School for an experiment involving three young blue crabs in which two students monitored the effects of different salinity levels on the crabs.

The objectives of the grants are to encourage a sense of stewardship and personal responsibility for the environment; to stimulate a better understanding of environmental issues; to aid in the elimination or reduction of an environmental problem, and to encourage the protection of rural areas and sensitive resources.

These grants are given in memory of Senator William S. James who drafted legislation to create the Maryland Environmental Trust and to incorporate the activities of the Governor’s Committee to Keep Maryland Beautiful.

For more information about the Bill James Environmental Grants and the Keep Maryland Beautiful program, please visit the Maryland Environmental Trust website or contact Cathy Ford at 410-5147-7900 or kmb@dnr.state.md.us . The deadline to apply is March 31, 2013.