Franklin Wins $1Million Greening Grant -- Thank you to all our supporters!! Benjamin Franklin Elementary Foundation Awarded $1 Million Urban Greening Grant. Parent-led submission wins competitive Prop 84 state funds to green school campus GLENDALE, CA. – The Benjamin Franklin Elementary Foundation (BFEF) has been awarded a highly competitive $1 million grant provided by Proposition 84’s Urban Greening for Sustainable Communities Program to significantly improve the campus and community at Franklin Magnet School, by transforming it from a sea of asphalt into a vibrant sustainable shaded environment that not only students, but the neighborhood can enjoy and benefit from. Franklin parents Hilary Stern, Rebecca Gray, and Gillian Bonacci learned about the Prop 84 grant in early 2013. Although initially hesitant to pursue a grant award of this magnitude, the immediate support and enthusiasm by Glendale Unified School Districts Superintendent Dr. Sheehan, the schools principal, Mrs. Atikian, and the Facilities and Support Operations lead Alan Reising, and the fortuitous subsequent partnerships with North East Trees and Osborn Architects, galvanized the parents to work on and submit a concept proposal that ultimately led to an invitation by the California Resources Agency to apply for the grant. Out of 184 concept proposals only 62 projects were invited to apply for the grant, and out of those 62 projects, 37 were recommended for a grant award. The BFEF project ranked number four out of the 37 projects awarded a grant. The BFEFs plan for the grant was to present a project that would improve quality of life and restore health to the Franklin community, mitigate environmental injustice for Franklin school children, increase environmental education opportunities, and act as a catalyst for environmentally innovative construction throughout the Glendale Unified School District (GUSD). The grant will allow the BFEF to put their plans into action in order to address the existing heat island problem and reduce air and water pollution caused from the adjacent freeway and industrial zones by replacing over 46,000 sq of asphalt and concrete with permeable surfaces, 36 new trees, rain gardens, bioswales and native plantings. The introduction of natural landscape elements will also capture and filter stormwater that currently collects on the asphalt surface. The grant will also fund outdoor learning labs, an amphitheater for educational access to healthy green spaces for students during the school day, interpretive signage to educate neighbors and visitors to the school about replicable environmental practices, and enhance the perimeter of the campus with a community gathering area and continuous walking paths along water-conserving rain gardens bioswales, habitat gardens, and vine-planted fences. We feel extremely honored to have been chosen among the 2014 awardees of the Proposition 84 Urban Greening Grant Program. This is a giant step forward to help safeguard the overall well-being of Franklins staff, students, and families.” said Mrs. Atikian, the school’s Principal. Prop 84 was passed by California voters in 2006 and allocated $70 million for Urban Greening Projects that provide multi-benefits to the community including reduction in energy use, increase in water conservation and improvement in quality of water and air for those on or near campus.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 20:00:59 +0000
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