The Ontario Trillium Foundation recently donated two separate grants aimed at greening parts of Wellington County.
Everdale Environmental Learning Center, the 50-acre organic farm operation near Hillsburgh, has received a grant of $253,800 including a $95,000 capital portion that will go to upgrading the community centre.
Everdale provides ongoing educational programs on sustainable farming practices and certificates, school farm education programs and introduction to farming seminars.
Executive director Brendan Johnson said the Trillium grant will allow the farm to winterize its community center to allow programs to be held year-round and also upgrade its greenhouse facilities to allow food to be grown throughout the year. “It (the community center) certainly needs some upgrading,” he said. “It needed some tender loving care.”
The work has been contracted to Cameron Contracting as part of a tender process required before the Trillium grant application was sent in to the foundation. The remainder of the grant will go to program delivery and upgrades, including lending expertise to similar facilities in northern Ontario.
“The north doesn’t have farming training programs,” Johnson added. “There’s this growing need for farm programs.”
Also receiving a grant was the Grand River Conservation Authority (GRCA). The $133,700 grant will allow the GRCA to hire a project coordinator to develop a tree-planting program with landowners and volunteers.
The program was initially started in Mapleton Township and has been expanded to include other communities in Wellington County.
“The Trillium Foundation grant will be used to cover the cost of hiring a coordinator and other costs for two years to promote tree planting in the Conestoga River watershed,” a press release from the GRCA stated. “The coordinator will work for the GRCA and support community tree planting programs such as Trees for Mapleton and similar projects in Waterloo Region. The goal is to plant 83,000 trees over the next two years. Some of the trees will be used to establish 22 kilometres of windbreaks, five hectares of shelter belts and 1,000 meters of stream and riverside planting.”
The program also has the support of the Drayton Kinsmen Club and Wellington County Stewardship along with the Grand River Conservation Foundation which put together the application for the GRCA grant request. The coordinator will work with local groups to hold public events to acquaint rural landowners with the benefits of tree planting. It’s expected the coordinator will help about 70 landowners develop tree-planting plans.
“The Trees of Mapleton program began in 2008, but prior to that an earlier program covered the former Peel Township, which is now part of Mapleton. Since 1991 landowners have planted more than 550,000 trees on a total of 350 acres,” the GRCA News release stated.
