2020
Organizations receiving the grants, along with their projects, include: Children’s Museum of Lancaster DBA (Doing Business As) Hands-on House, purchasing plants for its Discovery Meadow and acquiring a potting shed with accessories; East Petersburg Sportsman’s Association, buying and delivering trees and creek-side plants and shrubs to replace dead, weak or intrusive flora in its 11-acre preserve; and ELANCO Source Water Collaborative, developing a native plant pollinator garden along a community park’s wooded nature trail. Also, Historic Poole Forge, Inc., expanding and improving its recently developed
quarter-acre pollinator garden; Homefields Incorporated, purchasing native vegetation and a weed wrench for use in its current rain garden and the proposed extension of it; and Hope United Methodist Church, Ephrata, installing an informational sign along the Ephrata-to-Warwick rail-trail to direct and encourage trail users to visit its nearby native plant meadow and monarch butterfly pollinator garden. Also, K-Prep Learning Center, developing an outdoor classroom and organic learning garden for use by students and their families; and Pathways – A Community Home School, establishing a pollinator field that includes native plants and wildflowers in Lancaster County’s 90-acre Brubaker Park.
2019
Organizations receiving the grants, along with their projects, include: Brecht Elementary School, purchasing a rain barrel to enhance the school’s hands-on garden education program; Burrowes Elementary School, maintaining and improving the school’s community garden with the addition of a compost bin and the purchase of garden-related tools and supplies; and Elizabethtown Church of the Brethren, supporting the replacement of lawn with mixed hedges on the southern and east sides of the church ‘s property to reduce rainwater runoff.
Also, Harrisburg Area Community College, staking and protecting with tree tubes approximately 80 saplings planted in a riparian buffer on the Lancaster Campus; Hempfield Family Child Development Center, purchasing a child-friendly tumbling composter and a rain barrel with spigot for use in its outdoor play space close to beds of herbs and vegetables; and Historic Poole Forge, expanding its environmental education efforts for children and adults by adding a garden dedicated to pollinators/hummingbirds along the park’s nature trail.
Also, Homefields Incorporated, resolving drainage issues at this Community Supported Agriculture and Care Farm by installing a rain garden and introducing native trees, shrubs and forbs in the tree lines around its property; Hope United Methodist Church, transforming the 1.5 acres of fields behind its property into a bio-diverse pollinator habitat; and James Hamilton Elementary School, funding ongoing development of its garden program, the goal of which is to help educate students about gardening and nutrition and provide hands-on science activities.
Also, Lancaster Recreation Commission, developing a shared, mobile Outdoor Explorers Toolkit that will contain urban environment-related activity plans and other materials to be used with its school-age, after-school child-care programs; Lancaster Tree Tenders (Lancaster Conservancy), supporting its efforts to increase and enhance Lancaster City’s urban forest by developing a pilot tree watering project that will help assure the success of newly-planted trees; and Library System of Lancaster County, supporting the purchase of materials for Nature Explorer Bags, which will be used by 5 to 9 year-olds who enroll in the library’s 10-week outdoor Summer Fitness Quest Explorer Program.
Also, Martic Township Rail Trail Advisory Committee, implementing a green space enhancing plan that includes park benches, mile markers, a bike rack, trail maps, and landscaping on a portion of the Enola Low Grade Rail Trail that runs through the township; Pequea Township Silver Mine Park, supporting its ongoing project to transition the park’s north 67 acres from forest to meadows; and The Catholic Worker House of Lancaster, updating its organic garden beds, which are used to grow produce for homemade soup that is served to the homeless and needy in its soup kitchen.
2018
Church of the Apostles, supporting its Science in the Park program that brings inner-city elementary students to the church’s Rader Park for hands-on environmental awareness and learning activities; Hempfield Family Child Development Center, incorporating native plants and gardens in the yard and along the perimeter of the Center’s Nature Explore certified classroom; and Lancaster Tree Tenders, expanding its native tree-planting program to include Lancaster City residents who only have space for them in their back yards.
Also, Little Conestoga Watershed Alliance, installing a rain garden and meadow at its East Petersburg Green Infrastructure Demonstration Site, along Little Conestoga Creek; Pequea Township Silver Mine Park, creating a sustainable habitat for native birds and game and to promote awareness of the importance of natural habitat; and Strasburg-Heisler Library, purchasing several “Explore Outdoors Kits” for use by children ages seven and up.
Also, Quarryville Library Center, constructing a raised organic garden on the grounds of the library that will contain plants and flowers that are native to the area; Susquehanna Heritage, developing a water quality educational program for scouts, home school groups and the public at Columbia Crossing River Trails Center; and The Lancaster Cemetery and Neighbors United, purchasing native trees and plants for use in a planned, sustainable habitat garden near an older family plot at Lancaster Cemetery.
2017
Organizations receiving the awards are (along with their projects): City of Lancaster, maintaining and/or replacing newly planted trees in a one-acre riparian buffer along the Conestoga River; Hand’s Woods, advancing development of a master plan for its multifunction ecological preserve in southeast Lancaster; Lancaster Against Pipelines, offering education and training associated with The Lancaster Stand, the group’s outdoor symbol of opposition to the planned natural gas pipeline through Lancaster County; Lancaster Tree Tenders, enhancing Lancaster’s urban forest by engaging and empowering neighborhoods to plant and care for trees; Susquehanna Waldorf School, enhancing its Organic Soup Garden, an on-site botany lab in which students learn about soil composition, nurturing plants, and the health benefits of fresh foods; and The Stone Independent School, purchasing a Berkey Water Filter for use as part of its curriculum on water quality and research.
2016
the City of Lancaster, planting trees near the homes of residents and other green infrastructure efforts; East Petersburg Faith Outreach, creating a green area that includes native plants and grasses on the site of a former 20 ft. by 20 ft. parking lot near the East Petersburg Area Civic Center; Friends of the Osprey, developing a Susquehanna Riverbank site to view osprey nesting and interacting on a platform placed along the growing Northwest River Trail; Lancaster Tree Tenders, growing Lancaster’s Urban Forest by engaging and empowering neighborhoods to plant and care for trees; and Village Grande at Miller’s Run, completing certain aspects of its comprehensive plan that enhance the Village’s natural environment.
2015
Church of the Apostles (“Science in the Park” program for inner city elementary students); Compass Mark (introduction of environmentally beneficial systems to its gardening focus); Edward Hand Middle School (schoolyard habitat program); Lancaster County Conservancy (rain garden at Climbers Run Nature Preserve); Lancaster Mennonite Middle School (on-campus pollinator garden); North Museum of Nature and Science (program for parents and young children that introduces them to nature and science); Rader Park (rain garden/meadow to control runoff into Brubaker Run); Green Sanctuary Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lancaster (installation of Photovoltaic Array system on the church); and West Lampeter Township (construction and installation of bat boxes on all municipal properties).