Friends of Peak Creek Awarded Green Grant
Friends of Peak Creek, in the Town of Pulaski is awarded a $500 Green Grant in the Litter Prevention category as part of Keep Virginia Beautiful’s 15th Annual Green Grants program.
Every year, government, non-profit, civic, and service organizations in Virginia are invited to apply for grants ranging from $500 to $1,000 that will help address an environmental concern in their community. Grants must focus on one of the following priorities: Litter Prevention, Recycling & Waste Reduction, Cigarette Litter Prevention & Recycling, or Community Beautification.
Friends of Peak Creek is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the stewardship of the Peak Creek Watershed. Located in Pulaski County, Peak Creek is the major tributary to Claytor Lake, an impoundment on the New River. Established in 2013, their organization has three major goals: cleanup of Peak Creek and its tributaries, environmental educational outreach, and sustainable or responsible economic development. Friends of Peak Creek schedules three streambank cleanups per year: two streambank cleanups and one in the water. They also facilitate groups that want to volunteer but are constrained by their own schedules. 
Funds awarded from the Green Grant will be used to purchase additional supplies such as litter grabbers, gloves, safety vests to replenish first aid kits dedicated to cleanups. Purchasing quality and reusable equipment helps keeps cost down which allow us to continue the good work!
Many of the waterways they clean are rural and the roads are mountainous. There are places where dumping has occurred for years near streams. These streams wash debris down to Peak Creek and, worst of all, carry chemicals that have leached from the refuse found there.
There are 17 named streams in the watershed, and Friend of Peak Creek’s goal is to clean up all of them! In the past 12 years of existence, they’ve reached and cleaned eight. By the end of June this year they will have added one more.
Thank you, Friends of Peak Creek and all your volunteers, for the work you’re doing!







