CHNEP Public Outreach Grant Applications - FY10

CAC Grants Committee meeting

There isn’t a time when all the CAC Grants Committee members are available to meet. The time when the greatest number of people were available was the afternoon of Friday, October 2 from 1 to 5 p.m.  In the past, these meetings have taken as long as four hours. The meeting will be held at Punta Gorda Isles Civic Association (http://www.pgica.org/) at 2001 Shreve St in Punta Gorda (941/637-1655).

In 2005 the review process changed so that funding decisions are recommended by the CAC Grants Committee then by the CAC and by the program director. They aren’t considered by the TAC, Management or Policy committees. With this change, we were asked to give members of the other committees an opportunity to review and comment on the applications. Members of these committees were notified by email and asked to submit their comments by noon on Wednesday, September 30. See below for more guidance.

If you are on US 41 in Punta Gorda, turn west onto Airport Rd (There’s a CVS Pharmacy on the southeast corner and a bank on the southwest corner.) Turn right onto Shreve. The association building is maybe a third of a mile on your left. There’s a tennis court by the front parking lot.

Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program Public Outreach Grants (POGs) help multiply the number of people who are aware of the importance of estuaries and the protection of watersheds. Any Florida resident, organization, business, government agency, school, college or university may apply for support of projects that occur within the Program study area and that help implement the CHNEP Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP). Public Outreach Grants provide up to $3,000 with no match requirements. This year $30,000 is available to support Public Outreach Grant applications. These grants are available once a year. Additional information about the grant process and applications funded is available at www.CHNEP.org (http://www.chnep.org/Grants/Grants.htm).

The CAC Grants Committee will carefully review each of the 16 applications received (totaling approximately $47,000) and submit their recommendations to the CAC. The summary page from each application they recommend for funding will be included in the packet for the CAC meeting that’ll be held October 21, 2009.

Since 2005, individual members of the CHNEP Policy, Management and Technical Advisory Committees may submit comments on public outreach grant applications for the CAC Grants Committee to consider. If you’d like to review the applications, you can find the PDF file of each application on the CHNEP FTP site along with the guidance document (PDF named “POG FY10 Guidance”). If you have Internet access, you can access an FTP site. Open your Internet browser then where you would normally begin typing a website (www) address, type ftp://ftp.swfrpc.org

Enter user name: chnep

Password for account is:  chnepaccess

The PDF documents of the public outreach grant applications is in the folder named “Public Outreach Grant Applications”

Note:  Internet Explorer uses should click “Page” and then “Open FTP Site in Windows Explorer.”

Please send comments you'd like the CAC Grants Committee to consider to Maran Hilgendorf at mhilgendorf@swfrpc.org by noon on Wednesday, September 30, 2009. The Grants Committee includes members of the CAC who have voting rights and one person who represents the TAC. This meeting is open to the public. If you’d like to attend, the meeting location, direction and hours will be available on the website at www.CHNEP.org (http://www.chnep.org/Grants/Grants.htm).

Thank you.

Maran Brainard Hilgendorf, Communications Manager

mhilgendorf@swfrpc.org, Phone ext 240

Charlotte Harbor National Estuary Program

1926 Victoria Ave, Fort Myers FL 33901-3414

239/338-2556, Toll-free 866/835-5785, Fax 239/338-2560

Working together to protect the natural environment from Venice to Bonita Springs to Winter Haven