CWC awards 27 Education Grants

MARGARETVILE, May 7, 2008 - Twenty-seven education grants totaling nearly $135,000 were recently approved by the Catskill Watershed Corporation Board of Directors.

The awards will go to schools and non-profit organizations serving school-age students in the Catskills and in New York City. This is the 11th year that grants have been distributed for projects and programs to heighten awareness and understanding of the New York City water system and its vast Watershed West of the Hudson River. A total of 242 Watershed Education grants have been awarded to date in partnership with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection.

The current crop of funded projects includes an agriculture-themed exhibition and field day for Sullivan County schools; a participatory community planning exploration in Margaretville; construction of a Watershed model at a New York City middle school, and development of a local history curriculum related to water-based industries on the Mountaintop of Greene County.

Two Walton service centers of the Arc of Delaware County will set up Trout in the Classroom tanks to teach clients about environmental issues. Several schools will visit Frost Valley and Ashokan environmental education centers.

Watershed recipients in addition to the Arc are Jefferson, Hunter-Tannersville, Onteora, Delhi, Andes, Fallsburg and Gilboa-Conesville Central Schools; the Roxbury Arts Group; Sullivan County BOCES; Cornell Cooperative Extension of Sullivan County; Catskill Center for Conservation & Development; Mountaintop Historical Society; and Manhattan Country School Farm in Roxbury.

New York City-based recipients are South Street Seaport Museum, Alley Pond Environmental Center, Council on the Environment of NYC, Neighborhood School PTA, Friends of PS 16, Rocking the Boat, Nathaniel Hawthorne Middle School, Central Park East II Elementary School, and Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment.

Trout Unlimited, which runs the Trout in the Classroom program, will receive a grant to better serve more than 100 schools that are participating in this popular program both in the Watershed and in the City.

The CWC is a non-profit, local development corporation responsible for several environmental protection, economic development and education programs in the New York City Watershed West of the Hudson River. For more information, go to www.cwconline.org, or call toll-free 877-928-7433.