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Hartford Non-Profit Receives $20,000 Environmental Justice Grant

Release Date: 03/26/2009
Contact Information: Contact: David Deegan, (617) 918-1017

(Boston, Mass. – March 26, 2009) – The Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice (CCEJ) is one of four community-based organizations to receive a $20,000 grant as part of EPA’s Environmental Justice Small Grants Program for its work on the “Safe and Clean Connecticut Cities” project.

The “Clean and Safe Connecticut Cities” project will reduce health effects from air toxics in Hartford, New Haven, and Bridgeport, Conn. through education, outreach and capacity building efforts provided for urban residents. The goals of the project are to reduce exposure to toxic cleaning products and encourage the use of safer, less toxic alternatives to reduce environmental and public health problems in indoor environments.

“This grant money will help citizens in these cities help their community take steps to protect their health,” said Ira. W. Leighton, acting regional administrator of EPA’s New England office.

The CCEJ’s primary mission is to protect urban environments in Connecticut by educating communities, promoting changes in local, state and national policies, and promoting individual, corporate and governmental responsibility towards environmental issues. Some of CCEJ’s goals are to educate the public about the disparities in environmental burdens borne by urban communities and the reasons why negative health impacts are greater in those communities, and to create access to safe, healthy, and clean environmental amenities like parks and rivers for people in underserved communities.

The “Clean and Safe Connecticut Cities” Project Lead, Dr. Mark Mitchell, commented “EPA’s grant has been very helpful in enabling us to educate more people about the toxins that ordinary, over-the-counter cleaning products can contain and to suggest alternative products that are safer, work just as well, and are often cheaper than traditional products.”

EPA’s Environmental Justice Small Grants Program was created in 1994 with the purpose of supporting and empowering communities that are working on local solutions to local environmental and/or public health issues. Since then, EPA has given more than $31 million in grant to thousands of community-based organizations that are working to improve local environments.

More information: EPA’s Environmental Justice Small Grants Program
(https://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/grants/ej-smgrants.html)