The deadline to apply for Hennepin County Green Partners environmental education grants is coming up fast on October 14. This program provides grants to community organizations to empower residents to reduce waste, recycle, conserve energy, protect natural resources, and find creative solutions to help the local environment and community.

Green Partners consists of two groups: root, and branch. The root group is for first time grantees who can apply for up to $8,000 to start an environmental education project. The branch group is for organizations that have already received a grant and are looking to build on past efforts. Branch applicants can apply for up to $15,000.

Applicants are due by 5 p.m. on October 14. Learn more and apply.

Contact Patience Caso at patience.caso@hennepin.us or 612-348-9352 with questions or for more information.

In addition to conserving natural resources and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, recycling for businesses and organizations can help the bottom line and let them show their commitment to sustainability and the community.

Hennepin County provides grants to businesses and organizations to start or improve recycling and organics recycling programs. Grant funding can help with the purchase and installation of containers and equipment, hauling service charges, and minor improvements to loading docks and waste enclosures. The next deadline to apply is October 14. Learn more and apply.

For more information, contact Andre Xiong at andre.x.xiong@hennepin.us or 612-543-1316.

Grants are available for projects that preserve and restores natural resources in Hennepin County. The grants aim to restore natural areas and improve water quality while engaging organizations and residents in environmental stewardship. Projects may include constructing rain gardens, stabilizing stream banks, restoring native vegetation, installing vegetated filter strips, and other best management practices.

Grants are available to landowners, government organizations, nonprofit organizations, and businesses. Applications are due by 5 p.m. on November 4. Learn more and apply.

For more information, contact Jim Kujawa at james.kujawa@hennepin.us or 612-348-7338.

The fall season for many Hennepin County residents means raking leaves and cleaning up our yards. Raking does more than just keeping yards clean, it also helps to protect Hennepin County’s local waterways. When leaves get on the street, they can be washed into the storm sewer and eventually get carried to local lakes, rivers and streams. Leaves and grass clippings contain phosphorus and other nutrients that feed algae, which can ultimately leads to polluted waters. Things people can do to manage yard waste and protect water include leaving grass clippings on lawns, composting in the backyard, bringing yard waste to a drop-off site, or using a service provided by their hauler.

Participate in environmental education learning trunk activities and learn more about Hennepin County’s environmental education tools and resources at the next networking meeting. The meeting will be held October 25 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the new Brooklyn Park Library, 8500 W. Broadway Avenue in Brooklyn Park.

Environmental education learning trunks may be reserved by groups similar to a library book: check out a trunk, educate your community about environmental topics and actions they can take using the trunk activity guides, and return the trunk when you are done. The trunks vary in topics from recycling sorting games to the water quality game.

RSVP to Patience Caso at patience.caso@hennepin.us.

The Green Gifts Fair will be held Saturday, November 19 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Midtown Global Market. Vendors will sell a variety of goods including recycled, organic, fair-trade, local, and environmentally friendly goods. There will also a variety of activities including music, food and photo booth.

The final hazardous waste collection event of 2016 will be held October 13 – 15 at the public works site in Shorewood. Household, lawn and garden products, mercury-containing items and automobile fluids and fuels are accepted. Learn more.

The Cleveland Neighborhood Garden is well into its third growing season. Volunteers and youth interns from the community were trained to maintain the garden and compost bins. The association hosts communal work nights to keep up with weeding and composting and connect as a community. More and more neighbors are using the garden - people pick strawberries as they sit on the bench waiting for the bus, they take picnics on the table made out of a reclaimed pallets, and relax in the “living room station” centrally located in the garden.

This past spring and summer the association and neighbors maintained two beehives, installed a rain garden to capture rain from the alley, and built a raised bed garden with sticks and logs filled in with soil and compost, and diverted over 6,000 pounds of organic material from the waste stream through their composting efforts. 

Cycles for Change (C4C) is wrapping up their summer engaging youth as bicycle educators and leaders through their 2016 summer apprenticeship training program. Youth hired in June worked for nine weeks with C4C in the summer, during which time they learned skills in bicycle repair, bike safety, and community education around bicycling. Youth apprentices put those skills to use by positively engaging their communities around bicycling.

Youth who successfully completed the summer portion of the program have been invited to continue with the program for the remainder of the year by helping provide free bike repair at C4C’s Learn to Ride classes and weekly Open Shops. At open shops, high school-aged apprentices are paired with patrons as they arrive to assess the bicycle and teach the patron how to fix what needs to be repaired, such as truing the wheel, changing brake cables, or just pumping air into the tires, all at no cost to the patron.

Minneapolis First Seventh Day Adventist Church used a business recycling grant to purchase bins, begin organics hauling service, and purchase reusable items for meal times. They also received a Green Partners grant to engage congregation members to reduce waste at church and at home. Through the two grant projects, they have had tremendous success reducing and diverting waste from the trash. The church made a complete shift from disposable dinnerware and trash-only hauling service to purchasing heavy-duty reusable dinnerware and starting recycling and organics service.

Many opportunities were provided to members to learn about recycling and composting but even so, sorting waste into three bins – trash, recycling, and organics – was a challenge for some members. After some reflection and troubleshooting, project organizers decided to make it as simple as possible by making everything compostable or reusable. Now all of their potluck meals are ONLY generating organic waste.

The Minneapolis Toy Library is a toy lending program for families with children age birth to 5 years. The Toy Library hosts lending events that provide an opportunity for families to connect with one another while supporting their child’s development through play and reducing their impact on the environment. Toy lending events often become family affairs with children trying out toys while parents mingle or ask questions about the appropriateness of toys for their children.

The four moms who started it all – Taryn, Molly, Rosie, and Rebecca – worked on spreading the word, building the toy inventory, and hosting lending events during the first year. The toy library has moved from mobile events at Minneapolis libraries to Rebecca’s garage to finally a permanent space at Richfield Lutheran Church in south Minneapolis. Their Green Partners grant supported the purchase of additional toys and communications to support their programs and increase participation. Learn more and find event dates and times.