By Lisa Hardy
Environmental Planner

June and the end of the school year are right around the corner, and many of the HR Green mini grant recipients have started sending in their project summary forms. Last week an “A+” summary crossed my desk from Ms. Beach’s class at Norview High School in Norfolk. The class’ grant was to purchase a vermicomposting kit to turn the students’ food scraps into usable compost for their garden.The project was a huge success, and will be expanded next year with the help of the environmental club and Earth Science classes!

The compost is added to the class' raised bed gardens.

HR Green is proud to fund environmental mini grant programs throughout Hampton Roads. The HR Green mini grant program offers competitive grants of up to $500! The grants are awarded on a rolling basis, and are available to all Hampton Roads school teachers (K-12) and youth leaders/organizations.

Grants are intended to provide supplemental funding for environmentally related projects such as:

• Waste Reduction
• Water Conservation
• Recycling and the 3 R’s
• The Water Cycle
• Pollution Prevention
• Litter Prevention
• Watershed Education
• Soil Erosion
• Habitat Restoration/Creation/Beautification
• Waste or Water Audits
• Waterwise Landscaping
• Fats, oils, and grease disposal & recycling
• Properties of fats, oils, and grease (liquid, solid)
• Impacts of fats, oils, and grease on wastewater system

Program information can be found at: http://www.hrwet.org/education/minigrant.shtml  until the new HR Green site is launched.