Grants

The new TreeVitalize Bare Root Tree program aims to assist communities in Pennsylvania with increasing the tree canopy and commitment to urban and community forests.  This program provides up to 20 large caliper bare root trees for planting on land owned by a municipality (streets and parks) or non-profit organizations. This is a first come/first serve grant program.

The Office of Outreach and Partnerships Division (OPD) within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides leadership and funding to ensure that all programs and services are made accessible to all NRCS customers, fairly and equitably, with emphasis on reaching the underserved and socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers and landowners. In this Request for Applications (RFA), NRCS requests applications for four OPD priority areas through the Racial Equity and Justice Conservation Cooperative Agreements. The goal of this outreach is for NRCS in collaboration with partners to expand the delivery of conservation assistance to historically underserved farmers and ranchers, including socially disadvantaged, limited resource, beginning, tribal and veteran. Proposals should support activities that introduce the concepts of climate-smart agriculture and to assist producers with planning and implementation of conservation practices and principles.

The Five Star and Urban Waters Restoration grant program seeks to develop community capacity to sustain local natural resources for future generations by providing modest financial assistance to diverse local partnerships focused on improving water quality, watersheds and the species and habitats they support.

Projects include a variety of ecological improvements along with targeted community outreach, education and stewardship. Ecological improvements may include one or more of the following: wetland, riparian, forest and coastal habitat restoration; wildlife conservation, community tree canopy enhancement, habitat, water quality and wildlife monitoring and green infrastructure best management practices for managing run-off. 

Projects should increase access to the benefits of nature, reduce the impact of environmental hazards and engage local communities, particularly underserved communities, in project planning, outreach and implementation. This program expects that applicants will represent a mixture of urban and rural communities. NFWF may use a mix of public and private funding sources to support any grant made through this program and we expect that more than half of projects awarded will support underserved communities.

Funded through the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and administered by WeConservePA, Regional Trail Workshop Grants are awarded to support high-quality educational programming and safety training directly related to land trails, water trails, and greenways. Regional Trail Workshop Grants are reimbursement grants that cover up to 80 percent of the costs directly associated with each workshop (not to exceed $5000) and require at least a 20 percent match from the organization. Grantees are responsible for all remaining workshop costs. Only one grant will be awarded per organization per year.

Questions can be directed to Carol Grayshaw at cgrayshaw@weconservepa.org or 717.219.4074.