| Friends Of Brooker Creek |
$7,397 |
| Adult and youth volunteers will restore disturbed areas of Pinellas County's Brooker Creek Preserve created by historic land use. Native species will be planted and maintained along with an educational butterfly garden exhibit. |
| Eckerd College |
$6,255 |
| "Seagrass Community Stewardship: Developing Grassroots Leadership" will train a qualified volunteer corps to provide intensive monitoring and analysis of seagrass habitat after the completion of the Ft. DeSoto tidal exchange restoration project in Pinellas County. This monitoring effort will help to determine the relative success of the restoration project. |
| Keep Manatee Beautiful |
$1,900 |
| Educational signs will be created for a portable display to take to Manatee County festivals and events throughout the year. This display is designed to inform and recruit citizens to become involved in KMB's public property enhancement program, the Adopt-A-Highway/Road/Shore Program, and Storm Drain Stenciling programs focused on stormwater pollution and prevention. |
| Keep Pinellas Beautiful |
$4,181 |
| "Pitching in to Protect Rosie's Habitat" will educate public and private elementary school students about the effects of urban litter on estuaries. This project will provide interactive demonstration models of how urban litter reaches our estuaries. "Rosie" the mascot and her roseate spoonbill habitat will be the focal point of the project. |
| The Florida Aquarium |
$5,000 |
| "Art-O-Fishal-Fun" is a summer enrichment program for under-served, atrisk youths. This program combines art and science in four, week-long camps designed to instill a sense of ownership and stewardship for the environment, specifically our marine and estuarine resources. |
| Association Of Overlook |
$3,950 |
| This project will remove invasive plants from common property along a tidal stream in this Clearwater condominium community. Residents will work with extension service experts to remove dense stands of Brazilian pepper and replace them with native plants. An educational video will also be produced to provide background information and a "how to" section on eradicating invasives that can be shared with other homeowners. |
| Boy Scouts - Troop 267 |
$7,500 |
| Boy Scouts from St. Petersburg will replace existing Bahia and St. Augustine grasses at a stormwater treatment system at Weedon Island Preserve with native, drought-tolerant grass, to conserve water, provide wildlife habitat and prevent erosion. Marsh grass will also be planted in pond bottoms to enhance stormwater treatment function. |
| Dixie Hollins High School |
$3,000 |
| Two ecology classes from this St. Petersburg school will participate in a water quality study and restoration project of Lake Skipper, located on the west side of the school. |
| Suncoast Earth Force |
$7,500 |
| Funding will support two teachers and 64 students for the Global Rivers Environmental Education Network (GREEN) program. Teachers and students will learn about local watershed issues, how to access watershed information, and public policies and practices that affect these issues. Students and educators will then use that experience to complete an actual hands-on project to improve, restore or enhance some aspect of Tampa Bay. |
| Tampa Audubon |
$5,000 |
| Volunteers from Tampa Audubon will help Tampa Parks Department remove Brazilian pepper trees from McKay Bay Nature Park and replant with native plants. |
| Around The Bend Nature Tours |
$7,315 |
| "Spud-busting & Nature Search Field Experience for Students" is targeted at teaching middle school students about the ecological impacts of invasive plants. Students will take a field trip to Emerson Point Park in Manatee County to learn about native habitats and participate in removal of invasives such as air potato. |
| Ruskin Community Development Foundation |
$7,500 |
| Volunteers from Ruskin will remove invasive species and replant native plants at E.G. Simmons Park in Hillsborough County. Interpretive signs will be produced describing the newly planted species. |
| Egmont Key Alliance |
$7,035 |
| The Egmont Key Alliance will plant 6,000 to 7,000 native beach plants on dunes, berms and upland beaches in front of the historical structures at Egmont Key State Park. These plants will provide wildlife habitat, and help to stabilize the new sand received on the northwest shore from the St. Pete Harbor dredging project. |
| St. Petersburg Audubon |
$3,341 |
| Audubon members will produce and distribute educational materials about rooftop nesting of least terns, a threatened species. Because most of the natural bay shorelines on which they nest are crowded with people and buildings, least terns have begun nesting on flat-topped roofs. The materials will explain why the terns are using roofs, and what property owners can do to protect the nesting colonies. |
| Tampa BayWatch |
$6,062 |
| Tampa BayWatch will develop a teacher education program for 10 to 12 eighth grade teachers, then immerse them in hands-on bay restoration work. This training will then be used as a foundation to teach their students about the importance of Tampa Bay. |
| Tampa Audubon |
$7,500 |
| Private schools in Hillsborough County will participate in a four-hour field study at the Audubon Resource Center at Lettuce Lake Park (ARC at the PARK) in Tampa. The field study will emphasize hands-on learning experiences such as dip-netting for aquatic organisms, microscope use and water quality studies. |
