The Orange County Board of County Commissioners approved eight different projects that are intended to mitigate climate change through its 2023-24 Community Climate Action Grant Program.
The annual program provides money to small businesses as well as public and nonprofit entities for projects that help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The County selected Habitat for Humanity, Urban Sustainability Solutions, Inc., Hillsborough United Church of Christ, Binkley Baptist Church, EMPOWERment, Inc., Club Nova, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools to receive grant funding.
Amy Eckberg, Orange County’s sustainability programs manager, said the grant was created four years ago by the BOCC as a way to involve the community in climate action and provide funding for organizations.
“It's a pretty young program, but it's continuing to build,” Eckberg said. “We’re trying to really get the word out to as many people as we can to let them know about this great opportunity to be able to apply for grant funding. This past round we had 13 applications, which is the most that we've ever had since the grant was created, so that's really exciting.”
Organizations can apply for the grant starting in early summer, Eckberg said. The projects are then scored by two advisory boards and are presented before the BOCC for final approval.
Eckberg said projects are scored on a 26-point scale. Criteria include addressing social justice and racial equity, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the efficient use of funds, the capacity of the applicant, whether the project will address local economic development and the timeline of the project. The social justice and racial equity category is weighted the highest.
Mike Dupree, the founder and chair of Urban Sustainability Solutions, Inc. — one of the eight organizations awarded money from the grant — said the nonprofit will be using part of the money to implement stormwater practices at low-income houses, and the other portion to develop an apprenticeship program for Orange County Schools.
“The idea is to teach students what stormwater practices are, how rain gardens and cisterns benefit the community as well as offer them an opportunity to job shadow environmental contractors who are installing these practices,” he said.
Stormwater practices help to reduce the impacts of abnormal storms that have occurred more frequently as a result of climate change and also are beneficial for rainwater harvesting, Dupree said.
