Restoration Authority Approves Third Community Grant

Today, the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority awarded its third Community Grant to Planting Justice to develop a curriculum for training youth interns through a series of ten workshops; conduct the workshops to train approximately 20 youth interns in environmental justice issues and San Francisco Bay habitat restoration techniques; and lead the youth interns in shoreline cleanup, invasive plant removal, and habitat restoration work at the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline in Alameda County. 

The project, called Bay Restoration: Youth Engagement and Service Learning in East Oakland Project, will empower youth participants to develop a personal relationship with the watershed in which they live through educational and hands-on content. Planting Justice will partner with the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, an urban Indigenous women-led land trust that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people, to develop curriculum centered on topics including Bay habitat restoration, native shoreline plant identification, plant propagation and revegetation, water conservation, local environmental justice issues, permaculture, land rematriation and its connection to bay shoreline restoration, and Bay Area Native American history.

This grant of $99,173 is the third project funded by the Restoration Authority’s Community Grant Program, which supports projects that meet the Measure AA criteria and:

• Support community visioning aimed at developing conceptual plans for shoreline habitat projects.
• Implement small shoreline habitat projects with strong community benefits, e.g., community engagement, education, workforce development, career development, leadership development, and community celebrations.
• Train community leaders to develop proposals, apply for funds, and implement small shoreline habitat projects in partnership with shoreline landowners, such as planting native plants, removing invasive plants, and cleaning up trash.
• Empower communities to have a voice in the design and implementation of large shoreline restoration projects by helping them gain knowledge of shoreline issues and build relationships with restoration-focused organizations and agencies. 

To learn more about the project, click here.

At their meeting, the Governing Board also adopted a resolution to support the Bay Adapt Joint Platform , a regional strategy for a rising Bay, including the guiding principles, actions, and tasks. Bay Adapt is convened by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and is working to establish regional agreement on the actions necessary to protect the Bay Area’s people and natural and built environments from sea level rise.