Trillium funds BurlingtonGreen for the next five years to the tune of $375,000

By Pepper Parr

December 8, 2014

BURLINGTON, ON.

Ontario’s Trillium Foundation (OTF) has bailed out Burlington Green to the tune of $375,000 over a five year term.

Burlington has led the effort to involve youth in environmental responsibility. The group is about to plant a couple of hundred trees.

BurlingtonGreen, a volunteer driven organization striving to make Burlington a healthier more environmentally responsible city, has achieved numerous goals. The OTF grant will support current programming and provide funding to introduce two innovative community-based environmental initiatives.

The grant will fund approximately 50 per cent of the costs to provide a wide range of important environmental programs, services and events.

“Investing in effective, solution focused organizations like BurlingtonGreen is an investment in our collective future. Since their inception in 2007, the agency has engaged thousands of youth, citizens and groups in environmental learning while providing an array of rewarding and impactful volunteer opportunities that have benefited the health of the local environment,” said Eleanor McMahon, MPP for Burlington.

BurlingtonGreen’s Board President Paul Haskins commented on how vital the funding support is in strengthening the agency’s capacity to plan more effectively and strategically for a more sustainable future.

“It has become an increasing challenge for our agency to keep up with the wide range of demands that come our way as pressures on the environment continue to escalate and the implications of climate change become more evident at the local level,” said Haskins.

BurlingtonGreen Executive Director Amy Schnur with the bike that was donated by the Mountain Equipment Co-op as art of the drive to increase votes for the Call of the Wild $100,000 contest.

Grant funds will be used to support the delivery of children and youth programming, to co-ordinate the biennial Youth Eco-Summit and Eco-Awards Celebration, continue their innovative Grow to Give food donation service, to continue to conduct the popular city-wide Clean Up event and habitat restoration project work.

New initiatives include collaborations to create a Burlington focused eco-footprint calculator to help citizens, schools, community groups, and businesses understand their current impacts on the environment, highlighting opportunities to realize positive measurable change as well as efforts to establish a Green Building Demonstration Project.

Burlington took a huge environmental hit in August when rain storms flooded parts of the city and significantly damaged hundreds of homes. Everyone involved in policy in this city now uses the phrase “not if but when” the next environmental disaster strikes but we don’t seem to get much beyond that phrase.

BurlingtonGreen has done a brilliant job of attracting environmental stars to the city and developing a sense of environmental responsibility in the hearts and minds of high school students. Is there a place, an opportunity for BurlingtonGreen to begin the conversation within the community as to how we might protect ourselves and prepare ourselves for that next disaster?

Amy Schnur, current executive director of BurlingtonGreen now has an opportunity to go further with the development of policy proposal and provide some much needed intellectual leadership.

Picking up the waste and planting new trees are a major part of being more environmentally responsible and BurlingtonGreen does this well. Now that they have funding in place for the next five years, something very few non-profit organizations are fortunate enough to get; the community can rightfully ask them to step up their game and provide some policy leadership – because it isn`t going to come from city hall, the region or the Conservation Authority.