2013 GRANT SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN!

KVB is proud to bring back our very successful and highly anticipated “30 Grants in 30 Days” program.  We would like to thank our generous sponsor for 2013; Lowe’s Home Improvement.  Without them, these grants would not be possible!

The 2013 “30 Grants in 30 Days” program  is once again designed to help communities, schools, parks, neighborhoods, and civic groups battle Virginia’s environmental issues on the front lines.  These grants are categorized in 3 areas; (1) Litter Prevention, (2) Recycling, and (3) Beautification and Community Greening.  Thirty grants of $500 will be awarded to 30 geographically different areas around the Commonwealth within the 3 categories, to be dispersed amongst small to large communities, schools to universities, city parks to state parks, civic clubs to environmental groups.  These grants will be awarded in the 30 days of June.  Please fill out the grant application below.

Important Dates:

Application Deadline: May 15,2013

Applicants Notified: Starting May 31, 2013

Winners Announced Daily: June 1 through June 30, 2013

Grant Projected Completed By: October 31, 2013

Results Reported By: November 15, 2013

Categories:

• Litter Prevention – Grants will awarded to parks, communities, government or non-profit entities that implement programs within targeted geographic boundaries in Virginia to reduce litter. Funding would support educational outreach materials,  and clean-up events.  The purpose of these grants is to support sustainable prevention and a measurable reduction of  litter within Virginia’s communities.
• Recycling – Grants will be awarded to schools, parks, communities, government or non-profit entities that implement programs within targeted geographic boundaries in Virginia to reduce waste and increase recycling. Funding would support educational outreach materials, receptacles, and recycling launch events.  The purpose of these grants is to promote waste reduction and a measurable increase in reuse and recycling within Virginia’s communities.
• Beautification and Community Greening - Grants will be awarded to schools, parks, communities, government or non-profit entities within targeted geographic boundaries in Virginia which support programs that beautify and clean including community gardens, restoring vacant lots, highway and shoreline enhancement, plantings, and graffiti abatement. Funding would support community clean-ups, revitalization projects, and sustainable neighborhood gardens.  The purpose of these grants is to support beautification efforts within Virginia’s communities.

2013 Sponsor

To apply for a “30 in 30″ Grant, http://www.keepvirginiabeautiful.org/outreach/grants/

You’ve no doubt heard the stories of debris from the Japanese Tsunami washing up on the shores of the United States.  It’s kind of a fascinating study of ocean currents.  Small bits of plastic and wood are mixing with larger bits and pieces and ending up on the coastline from Alaska to California.  A soccer ball from a Japanese elementary school was found in Oregon.  A shipping container hit the shore, complete with the Harley Davidson motorcycle it was engaged to protect.  A few weeks ago, a support vessel for a commercial fishing boat was found half-buried on a West Coast beach.  Residents of Montague Island in Alaska say that walking the beach is like navigating a landfill.

While debris from this natural disaster is a rare occurrence, garbage in our oceans is not.  All of our oceans contain eddys and gyres, or circular ocean currents that rotate to distribute weather, water and sea creatures.  They also tend to trap and concentrate waste and trash.  There is one in the Pacific that has come to be referred to as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.”  While, contrary to popular belief, you can’t walk across it or see it from space, it is definitely there.  Much of it is, in fact, so small that you wouldn’t see it if you were in a boat on top of it, but it’s there.

And most of it is small bits of plastic.

Here’s the thing:  When it ends up in the ocean it becomes a part of that ecosystem.  Florida did not always have boa constrictors and pythons, but now they’re there and a part of the wildlife.  The same holds true for the garbage that we put in our oceans.  Fish school around it, shellfish cling to it, dolphins play with it, and sea turtles eat it.  You also cannot simply wave a skimmer or rake and make it all disappear.  It’s there, for good or ill.

There are two things that we need to know about this debris:  What it does and how it got there.   What it does is pollute the water.  Even though it seems to last forever, it leaches out chemicals over the course of its life.  There are toxins that were used to print logos, lesser plastics that dissolve, and as the pieces get smaller and smaller, they get ingested by animals and creatures that filter sand, like shrimp and shellfish.  Now the creatures carry the same toxins as the plastic.

And these plastics come from us.  They are the innocuous plastic float that we used for fishing.  It is the fishing line that we untangled and let float away in the water.  It is the beach ball, carelessly left on the shore to be picked up at the next high tide.  Bottles and six-pack holders become chokers and garrotes for dolphins and whales.  Cheap coolers and packing materials clog the stomachs of our most voracious feeders.

This garbage doesn’t always start off on a boat or a seemingly innocent jaunt to the beach.  It often comes from the streams and rivers that feed into our oceans.  It is just our carelessness that started the journey.

There is a chance that you can, however, do something about it.  You can start with your own personal actions.  When you hike the mountains you are advised to “leave nothing but footprints and take nothing but memories.”  Why not take the same guidance when you kayak or fish?

You can also join us at a summit of professionals from the federal, state and local levels this weekend at the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center.  The Virginia Marine Debris Summit will look at the source of the problem, and try to develop solutions to mitigate and eliminate it from becoming an unwinnable battle.

It’s not every year that you get to celebrate something like 60 years, and we’re starting ours out in style! You may have heard about our Give 60 program, or Get Caught in a Beautiful Act. You may have even heard that we’re throwing a shindig in October to cut some cake and blow out some candles.

So what can you get us for our birthday? A few minutes of your time. Sixty of them, to be more specific. Sure, there are also opportunities to donate a few dollars. We have long been blessed with some great corporate and business partners to run individual events and programs, like our 30 in Thirty and putting recycling bins in all of our State Parks, but we often count on the generosity of folks like yourselves.

But here’s the easiest part: Getting Caught.

Many of our partners and members take a very active role in helping to Keep Virginia Beautiful. People plant flowers and keep their sidewalks clean. Youth groups renovate playgrounds and city parks. Schools install rain gardens and start recycling programs. Groups like Earth Korps and Bull Run Mountains Conservancy muck around in our rivers and mountains. Businesses like Altria spend a day sprucing up a James River Park.

It’s really easy if you just devote the time to do it. And this year we ask you to do just that. But we like to share, and so are asking you to post a photo, photos, or a video of your group engaged in your project. Let us see you being Caught in your Beautiful Act. As we get closer to our Birthday Party (October 5th at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) we’ll sort the submissions by category, like School or City/Town, and recognize those who had the most Beautiful Acts.

The neat thing is that with this sort of “contest,” everyone is a winner. You’ll feel better for having contributed, your friends and neighbors will appreciate and enjoy your hard work, and our Commonwealth will be cleaner and more beautiful for your efforts.

Our friends at Rocket Pop Media thought that it was a great idea, and took ownership of the block around their office in The Fan District of Richmond, Virginia. They have sort of an advantage because video and media is kind of what they do, but we really appreciated the hour that they spent on city streets to help Keep Virginia Beautiful.

We told you that we had some great things planned for 2013, and those plans have started to come together:

We’d like for you to visit our new partner site, KVB60.org.  This will be with us as we coordinate events, actions and news across the Commonwealth throughout our Anniversary year.

When we started out in 1953 we just wanted to tidy up some litter.  But Keep Virginia Beautiful has become much larger than that simple mission.  And this new site helps to highlight that.  So here’s what you’ll see:

• Give 60:  We’re asking each Virginia citizen to use 2013 as a chance to either give $60 or 60 minutes to help to Keep Virginia Beautiful.  This can be done by an individual action or as part of a group.  Just remember our five impact areas, (Litter Prevention, Recycling, Waste Reduction, Beautification & Education) and get busy!  If you need some inspiration or would like to find a group to connect with, head over to our Events Page.
• Get Caught in a Beautiful Act:  They say that if you want to encourage positive behavior it is more useful to catch people doing something good.  This is your opportunity to recognize others for doing something positive in their neighborhood or community.  Take a photo or video of an individual or group giving back, send it to us, and we’ll enter them in a contest to determine the most Beautiful Acts!
• Our 60^th Anniversary Gala:  Who doesn’t like a good party, and especially on your birthday?  As part of our celebration, we invite you to join us at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, Virginia on Saturday, October 5, 2013.  We’ll recognize those who have done the most to Keep Virginia Beautiful, there will be music and food, and we’ll auction some stuff off.  Nothing from the VMFA Permanent Collection, mind you, but some cool stuff.  And it will be the biggest party we’ve ever thrown.
• The 3^rd Annual Keep Virginia Beautiful Golf Tournament:  June 10^th at Stonehenge Golf & Country Club.  We like Stonehenge because they’re sort of a Green Golf Course.  Sounds funny, right?  Well, they do a great deal to reduce their water usage, their need for chemicals, and encourage wildlife habitat.  The Tournament is open to anyone who wants to play or field a team, and if you register before February 15^th we’ll cut you a deal.
• 30 in 30:  This is one of our proudest achievements.  Each year, to coincide with Earth Day, we use the month of April to award 30 grants in thirty days.  This is seed money for groups and organizations who wish to do something to help us in our mission to Keep Virginia Beautiful.  We’ve helped schools start gardens and recycling projects, civic groups rehabilitate playgrounds, and towns beautify their public spaces.  All they had to do was have a good idea and apply for the grants!

As you can see, we have plenty planned for our 60^th Birthday.  But we can’t really celebrate it in style without your help.  Visit our KVB60 site and learn some more about how you can help us in 2013 to Keep Virginia Beautiful.

So, the election is over and everyone can get back to their lives.

But we’ve been busy.  On Thursday, November 15^th, we will be joining thousands of folks across the country to celebrate America Recycles Day.  To do our part, we will be partnering with Dominion Virginia Power and Virginia Green to institute a program that we’ve been working on for quite some time.  In addition to some new educational signage and trail cleaning at First Landing State Park in Virginia Beach, Lake Anna State Park in Spotsylvania and Leesylvania State Park in Woodbridge, we will be rolling out several recycling containers in each of the parks.

Keeping Virginia Beautiful is no easy task, but a $25,000 grant from Dominion will allow us to make a dent by putting between 6 and 8 of these carts in all 35 of our state parks.  This is a total of more than 250 carts for the parks.  The Virginia State Parks are award winning, and possibly the best expression of our mission at Keep Virginia Beautiful.  Environmental education and natural resource stewardship are important parts of the mission of the Virginia State Parks, and their limited resources have made tackling recycling a difficult task.  While they all have some sort of program, having these large, highly visible containers for use by park visitors will lead them further down the road to improving their recycling efforts.

State Parks Director Joe Elton said,

“This partnership with Keep Virginia Beautiful and Dominion will pay huge dividends for all Virginians.  The recycling containers allow us to greatly increase our in-park recycling efforts, keeping valuable resources out of our landfills.  Perhaps more importantly, the signage and our commitment to bring a recycling message to our visitors will encourage more Virginians to recycle at home and at work.”

America Recycles Day is an initiative of our parent organization, Keep America Beautiful.  Brenda Pulley of KAB said,

“We are very proud supporters of Keep Virginia Beautiful’s America Recycles Day events and commend their efforts to promote recycling in Virginia.  Recycling is the easiest thing we can all do to save energy, conserve natural resources and create green jobs.  Collectively, through events like these, we aim to make recycling bigger and better 365 days a year.”

America Recycles Day is the only nationally recognized day and community-driven awareness event dedicated to promoting and celebrating recycling in the United States.

Our partner at Dominion, Chief Environmental Officer Pamela Faggert said,

“The protection of the environment is not only important to Dominion as a company, but also to our employees.  Many of them will volunteer to work at three State Parks on November 15^th, installing recycling carts and cleaning up the grounds.  We remain environmentally responsible and wholeheartedly support spreading the recycling message to all those who visit Virginia’s State Parks.”

Our State Parks are the starting point of all that we hold beautiful and natural in our state.  By helping all 35 of our parks, Keep Virginia Beautiful and our partnerships with Dominion Virginia Power, Virginia Green and Keep America Beautiful will be able to reach the hundreds of thousands of visitors to our parks with our recycling message.

Thank you to our partners, and we will now look to YOU to visit our State Parks and use those bins!

Virginia has a pretty wide and varied number of public festivals and events every year.  There are wine festivals, Earth Day events, and music events like Floyd Fest.  Sometimes they promote Virginia products or regions, and sometimes they benefit a specific group, like our friends at Earth Korps and their Belgravia Beer and Wine Festival.  One thing that they all have in common is that they’re fun.

The City of Richmond had its own this past weekend, and over 200,000 people joined in the revelry.  We were overjoyed to attend and play a small part in the Richmond Folk Festival.

Our Capital city was the host to the National Folk Festival for several years, and when they pulled up stakes and moved to Nashville, Tennessee in 2007, Richmond decided to continue what was becoming a pretty successful gig.  Over 30 groups performed on seven stages over the course of 2 ½ days.  Bands of musicians and dancers from around the world entertained as merchants peddled crafts, served up delicious regional and ethnic foods, and demonstrations highlighted folklife and arts.

Here’s where we pitched in:

We were able to partner with MeadWestvaco and the Richmond Clean City Commission to purchase 100 recycling carts.  The City of Richmond keeps these carts in storage and are at the ready to pull them out for any and all events held within the City.  We were able to pull out all of these carts and distribute them throughout the Richmond Folk Festival.  The Folk Festival had a Green Team that worked throughout the event and kept everything tidy.  You couldn’t miss the hundreds of volunteers in their green t-shirts and in addition to picking up trash and keeping things neat, they physically sorted through trash to make sure that everything that could be recycled was recycled.  The Folk Festival, Venture Richmond and the Richmond Green Events Committee go to great lengths to make sure that this event has as small a footprint as possible. 

As you can imagine, a festival attended by 200,000 people will generate a great deal of trash, and much of that can be recycled.  We were plenty pleased to see so many attendees make good use of the bins, and they were emptied continuously over the course of the weekend.  We also placed almost 30 cigarette receptacles across the grounds, and they certainly went to good use.  We handed out over 2,000 pocket ashtrays (they were almost as big a hit as Rosanne Cash!), and over 5,000 people signed our banner, thereby pledging to join us in our mission to Keep Virginia Beautiful.  We’ve engaged Virginians to sign our banner at other events, but we’ve never had one as full as this, and so many people making that promise.

Again, we can’t say thank you enough for the help and support of MeadWestvaco and the Richmond Clean City Commission.  And we certainly appreciated the help of a number of volunteers to distribute things and assist in cleaning things up.  And our hats certainly are off to the Richmond Folk Festival, Venture Richmond, and the Richmond Green Events Committee.  It’s easier to have a green event like this when you come out of the gate swinging, and these guys really care about that.  And, yes, we got to see some great music and eat some wonderful food.  But more than anything, we wanted to thank the thousands who came to the Folk Festival, used our recycling bins, put their cigarette butts where they were supposed to go, and joined our commitment to Keep Virginia Beautiful.  Even with so many people gathered in one place, it can still be done.

The Featured Image for this post is Courtesy Joe Mahoney via Richmond Times-Dispatch

We’ve become a very reactive society.  We respond to things that have already happened.  We take drugs to ease the effects of ailments that we’ve eaten ourselves into, we buy insurance after experiencing loss, and fix the faucet whenever it leaks.  Nowhere is this more evident than when we look at our environment.

After centuries of polluting our planet, we’re now beginning to take steps to hopefully correct the wrongs that we committed.  In 1969 the Cuyahoga River in Ohio caught fire.  Runoff from industry had so polluted the river that Time magazine commented that a person who fell in would not drown, but would decay.  The river first caught fire in 1868, and a fire in 1952 caused much more damage, but the resulting press in 1969 caused such an outcry that we now have the Clean Water Act and the Environmental Protection Agency.  It was a reaction to a river that oozed with chemicals instead of flowing with clean water.

When you look at the work done by many of our friends, it is a reaction to the thoughtlessness of others.  They paint over graffiti, pick up trash, and refurbish neglected playgrounds and parks.  Guys like Earth Korps fish trash out of our waterways.  Bull Run Mountains Conservancy spent a day filling up trash bags with roadside litter.  Many of the events on the Keep Virginia Beautiful site are calls to action for a “clean up” or some sort of project to right a wrong.  It is only when we realize how badly we’ve screwed up that we begin to take action.

Perhaps we could all do well to remember our three R’s:  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

One of the things that Earth Korps has done is proactive.  Part of the reason that they started their organization was the fact that trash in the river was impeding their enjoyment of it.  Those Valley boys like to fish, and their lures were spending a lot of time getting tangled in discarded fishing line.  When you’re fishing and your line gets snarled, it’s easy to just cut it loose and start over.  After spending a few years cleaning garbage out of the Shenandoah River, they spent a day putting up Mono Bins.  A cheap hunk of PVC pipe with a cap on the end, hanging at a convenient spot near a prime fishing hole.  It now makes it easy for a fisherman to discard his line in a place where it won’t foul the attempts of other anglers.  They’ve put them up at a few spots, and hope to have them lining the banks of the river wherever people like to fish.

Sometimes it’s not easy to do the right thing, but it does put us ahead of the curve.  It can be as simple as putting something in a trashcan.  Choose products that have smarter packaging.  Choose a product that you know will have another life at the end of its use.  Plant some flowers because you want to.  Plant a tree where you may not need one.  Think of it as Paying it Forward for our environment.

Perhaps if we did a better job of actively protecting our environment we’d find ourselves less reactive.  We could all do a better job of making smarter choices in our lives, from our purchases to our transportation to our homes.  The time to worry about your roof is not when it’s raining in your living room.  We change the oil and get a tune-up so that the car won’t break down.  We eat healthy foods so that we won’t have to go to the doctor.

When it comes to our mission to Keep Virginia Beautiful and making smart decisions, look at it as preventative maintenance.

In honor of Earth Day, we awarded 30 Grants in 30 days through April and May.  We awarded Grants ranging from $500 to $1,000 to schools, parks, towns, environmental groups, associations, KVB affiliates, and historic neighborhoods in three different categories:  Litter Prevention, Recycling, and Beautification/Community Greening.  Our Grant Winners stretched from the Chesapeake Bay and oceanfront, through the Shenandoah Valley, to the Western Mountains, and from Northern Virginia to our Southern border.

These Grants were made possible by our fantastic partners, Capital One, Waste Management, and Lowe’s.  Here is a list of our 2012 “30 in 30″ Grant Winners:

James River Association, Statewide          Virginia Supportive Housing, Charlottesville

Holy Cross Academy, Fredericksburg          Keep Suffolk Beautiful, Suffolk

Claytor Lake State Park, Pulaski County          Innsbrook Foundation, Short Pump

United Methodist Urban Ministries of Richmond          Patrick Henry Boys and Girls, South Boston

Richmond Habitat for Humanity, Richmond          New Roots Youth Garden, Cape Charles

Fallon Park Elementary School, Roanoke          Rappahannock Group Sierra Club, Fredericksburg

Metropolitan Day School, Richmond          VA Aquarium and Marine Science Center, Virginia Beach

Chamberlayne Elementary School, Henrico          Capital Area Food Bank, Lorton

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Richmond & Tri-Cities

Thomas Jefferson Soil and Water District, Charlottesville

EarthKorps, Edinburg

Friends of Pocahontas State Park, Chesterfield

Deep Creek Middle School, Chesapeake

Big Day of Serving, Manassas

Buckingham Middle School, Buckingham            Chesapeake Bay Governor’s School, Tappahannock

Isle of Wight County          Town of Luray

Community Preservation and Development Corporation, Alexandria

Friends of Bryan Park, Richmond          Chesapeake Arboretum, Chesapeake

Dan River Basin Association, Collinsville

All of these groups support our mission at Keep Virginia Beautiful; To engage and unite Virginians to improve our natural and scenic environment.  Our goals include becoming the leading statewide voice, providing a framework for improved communication and collaboration, cultivating and supporting sustainable programs, and engaging citizens by linking them to volunteer opportunities and information through these five impact areas:  Litter Prevention, Waste Reduction, Recycling, Beautification, and Environmental Education.

Congratulations again to all of our 2012 “30 in 30″ winners, and we look forward to providing you with some updates on their programs!

Mike Baum is the Executive Director of Keep Virginia Beautiful