Green Grants Program

We are grateful to the sponsors of our 2024 Green Grant program!

Green Grants LogoOur spring 2024 Green Grants applications are now open!  

To see last year’s projects and programs, follow THIS LINK for a list of the 2023 Green Grant Awards.

Our Green Grants program empowers groups all across Virginia to make an environmental impact in their own communities.  This is one of the ways we can engage the people who live in Virginia to improve our natural and scenic environment. We believe in a shared responsibility to end littering, improve recycling and beautify communities, and we know with your determination and our support, much can be accomplished!

Keep Virginia Beautiful accepts grant applications in spring each year, and funds thirty awards in amounts of $500, $750, or $1,000.  The applications are evaluated and scored by a panel of experts in their fields.

In June, one Green Grant award is announced one each day. The grants are awarded to schools, parks, counties and towns, environmental groups, associations, nonprofits, and service organizations in four different categories: Litter Prevention, Cigarette Litter Prevention, Community Beautification, and Recycling.

The general Grant Application Guidelines should be read before an application is submitted.

Grant applications are accepted each Spring.

If you were awarded a 2023 Green Grant and haven’t sent your results, please
submit your Final Report HERE. 

 

For questions about the Green Grants Program or the application, please contact Beckey Watson [email protected].


DESCRIPTION OF GRANT CATEGORIES:

Litter Prevention

Grants are awarded to groups that aim to clean up, prevent, or reduce litter. Funding will support cleanup supplies, cleanup events, including water cleanups.  Studies show that an area that does not contain litter less likely to become littered in the future. The purpose of these grants is to support sustainable prevention and reduction of litter in Virginia.  Read more about litter facts and resources.


Cigarette Litter Prevention

Cigarette butts account for over 30% of all U.S. roadway litter and storm drain litter. Grants are awarded for projects that include public education and awareness of the issue of cigarette litter, placing cigarette butt receptacles at transition points (such as entrances to public buildings), recycling cigarette butts through the TerraCycle, and/or distributing pocket or portable ashtrays to adult smokers. Learn more about Cigarette Litter Prevention.


Community Beautification

The purpose of this grant is to support beautification efforts within Virginia’s communities.  Grants are awarded to groups who create projects or programs that beautify and benefit the community, such as community gardens, renovating vacant lots, removing or repainting graffiti, creating green public spaces, and community revitalization projects. Here’s a booklet about placemaking for inspiration!


Recycling and Waste Reduction

Grants in the Recycling category are awarded to groups that implement or expand programs to increase recycling, as well as other inventive ways to reuse or repurpose recyclable/non-recyclable items, or other ways to reduce waste in Virginia.  Funding will support recycling receptacles, fix-it fairs, re-usable produce and shopping bags, water refilling stations, and other efforts to eliminate the dependence on single-use plastics.  Learn about Terracycle’s  free recycling programs for many household items such as toothpaste and shampoo bottles.

Since 2011, Keep Virginia Beautiful has provided $307,000 for 415 programs and projects throughout the state. 

 

We are grateful to the sponsors of our 2024 Green Grants Program!

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