Americana Foundation

This grant will help Planet Detroit launch a community journalism training program. In this program, Planet Detroit will train community reporters to report on sustainability issues in their neighborhoods and communities, such as local food production and security, vacant lot and alley activation, housing rehabilitation and development, and habitat restoration. The stories will highlight human and nature-based solutions while shedding light on the challenges that local leaders and entrepreneurs face in holding leaders accountable and while elevating grassroots community groups as they overcome these challenges. Planet Detroit will partner with El Central Media to translate and republish the stories in Spanish. 

Headwaters will use this grant to launch an educational stewardship-based program to help private landowners in northeastern Michigan improve land management practices. Private land conservation and management will help to create corridors of sustainable habitat to support the growth and preservation of Michigan flora and fauna. Headwaters will offer the program in partnership with local conservation districts, MSU Extension, and local invasive species management groups. 

Make Food Not Waste will use this grant to create and deliver a behavior change program directed at college students. The purpose of the program is to reduce consumer food waste, which remains the greatest source of food waste in the food system. The program will focus on college campuses because research shows that college students are significant generators of food waste, especially of edible food. Make Food Not Waste will develop and deliver the program in partnership with five local colleges and universities (Oakland University, Lawrence Technological University, College for Creative Studies, Wayne State University, and University of Detroit-Mercy).

This match grant will leverage funds raised from other sources to expand a field trip program that enables schools and youth groups in the Greater Lansing area to deepen their connection to local food systems and learn about nutrition, botany, and other farm and garden educational topics.

This match grant will leverage funds raised from other sources to construct a growing space next to an existing community farm in Muskegon. The new space will include no-till farm beds that students from area schools can use to grow and harvest produce that they can take home to their families. Students will engage in hands-on outdoor classes where they will learn to perform soil testing, diagnose plant diseases, identify pests, and learn the best way to grow fresh food.

MSBF will use this grant to recruit and retain a sustainability project manager to support the City of Benton Harbor and to work alongside local community-based organizations, regional institutional partners, and state/national benefactors to develop and execute climate justice and sustainability programs and initiatives to capture opportunities created by state and federal Justice 40 grants. The grant will provide the required match for a $74,000 grant awarded by The Funders Network under the Partners for Places Program. 

This grant will enable the Soo Locks Children’s Museum in Sault Ste. Marie, MI to install an interactive exhibit consisting of floor-to-ceiling interactive trees that will feature nature-based and native traditional information to engage children in learning about seasonal changes, their impact on wildlife, waterfowl, and fish, and the seasonsl customs of the Anishinaabe people.  

This grant will support the development of the first Edible Education “walkshop” at Greenfield Village to help visitors to the reconstructed Detroit Central Market understand how food is grown, prepared, and consumed, and how the food system affects personal, community, and environmental health.

This grant will support the purchase of five cellular backpack transmitters (with associated data costs) that researchers at MSU use to track and map the migratory pathways of redtail hawks at the Mackinac Straits.

This grant will provide one year of supplemental salary support for a horticulture teacher at Randolph Career and Technical Center. The Randolph CTE provides high school students with a career pathway education program that includes hands-on learning, job shadowing, project learning, apprenticeships, and certifications in various fields, including horticulture.

This grant will support a partnership between Black to the Land Coalition, a team of urban Indigenous leaders, the City of Detroit, and other local organizations that are creating an urban sugarbush in Rouge Park. The purpose of the sugarbush is to connect Detroiters to Indigenous experts in the cultural tradition of making maple sugar. With this grant, the sugarbush organizers will provide equipment and supplies for gatherings at the site, engage a designer to develop a plan for permanent infrastructure, and retain Planet Detroit to create a short documentary about the sugarbush operation.

This grant will expand programs that connect small- and medium-sized farmers in northeast Michigan to communities in need of fresh local produce. Project partners will establish pop-up farmers markets in eight communities, connect farmers to food service facilities at senior centers, schools, and other institutions, and create opportunities for community organizations to establish a regional food system that promotes greater cooperation and coordination on food, agriculture, and health.

This grant will support a partnership between Detroit Hives, MSU’s Detroit Partnership for Food Learning and Innovation (DPFLI), and DPFLI's neighbors in Detroit that will design, plan, and implement a community pollinator garden. The garden will include more than 300 seasonal perennials, an integrated pest management plan, and educational signage. Detroit Hives will use the garden as a site for its Bee the Change program, which educates local families on the importance of pollinator conservation through workshops and community hive tours.

Avery Arts & Nature Learning Center will use this grant to support a nature education series designed to inspire the community in the Eastern UP to become more connected to the natural world. Adult presentations and workshops will address such at topics as the impacts of climate change, invasive species and wildlife management, land ethics, and environmental stewardship. Youth programs will consist of family learning opportunities about wildlife, the environment, and sustainability.

The Little Traverse Conservancy will use this grant to support the development and initial implementation of an Ecological Conditions and Response (ECAR) protocol to support stewardship planning and inform the implementation of stewardship activities at the 25,000 acres of lands it protects as nature preserves and working forest reserves.

Scrap Soils will use this grant to provide affordable and accessible food scrap collection service for up to 200 residents in the West Village neighborhood of Detroit, thereby reducing food waste by as much as 72,800 lbs per year and diverting as much as 182,000 lbs of CO2 emissions.

Keep Growing Detroit will use this grant to provide scholarships to as many as 10 beginning farmers in Detroit, so they can earn a certificate in organic farming from MSU's Organic Farmer Training Program.  The program is an intensive eight-month course of study that meets weekly and includes 16 interactive online learning sessions, 11 hands-on activities on home-based farms, and six field trips to working farms in Detroit, Lansing, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Traverse City.

This grant will support programs at a new Kids' Food Basket (KFB) farm in Holland, MI.  At the farm, KFB will provide food justice programming, equity education, and hands-on agriculture volunteer opportunities, and will grow fresh produce for distribution.  KFB works to eliminate childhood hunger by closing the gap between kids and agriculture and shifting the focus from food charity to food sovereignty.

This grant will support the expansion of Metro Food Rescue's Fruit Tree Harvest and Backyard Produce Project.  In this project, volunteers are engaged to collect unused or excess fruit from orchards and backyard growers and either deliver it to low-income families and seniors, or to local processors for use in making jams and jellies.

This grant will contribute to the construction of a reflection labyrinth at the Viewlands Reserve in Emmet County, MI and the installation of low-slope pathways at the Reserve to enable people with mobility challenges to access a wildflower meadow and other features.

Farmland is a highly specialized type of property that requires detailed knowledge transfer and trust between seller and buyer.  This grant will help shepherd Washtenaw County farmland to the next generation of farmers through a real estate website and land-linking support service connecting legacy farmers with farmers who need land.

Growing Hope will use this grant to equip the members of its community with the tools and knowledge needed to grow food, while uncovering their collective power to engage in, and develop, a more equitable food system.  The grant will be used to prepare the community to engage in food policy and to act collectively in order to preserve land for growing, and create spaces where food sovereignty can be actualized.

Americana's Next Gen cohort selected the D-LEEP program as a grant recipient to support efforts to work with students in Detroit and their families to plant wildflowers, trees, and gardens in their backyards and to connect with networks of other Detroiters who are growing food and/or native plants.

This grant will support the expansion of two programs in Genesee County: Inspiration Gardens, which features community gardens in which youth plant, grow, and harvest crops for their families and for donation to the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan; and Watch Me Grow, a floriculture and horticulture program for young people that the grantee administers in partnership with Motherly Intercession, a group that assists families with an incarcerated parent.

Americana's Next Gen cohort selected Six Rivers Land Conservancy to receive a grant to help repair and restore a pavilion, picnic tables, trail map, viewing platform, and benches at the Sutherland Nature Sanctuary so that they continue to provide education, enjoyment, and an outdoor nature experience to visitors.