EPA Healthy Communities Grant Will Help Protect Children’s Health in Rhode Island

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 11, 2019

EPA Healthy Communities Grant Will Help Protect Children’s Health in Rhode Island

Grant Addresses Children’s Health Concerns including Exposure to Lead in Housing

Providence – Today the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) New England regional office announced a $25,000 Healthy Communities Grant awarded to the Childhood Lead Action Project (CLAP) in Providence, Rhode Island.

Announced during Children’s Health Month in October, the grant will help fund the organization’s continued work to address environmental and public health issues related to lead exposure in housing. The project will reduce environmental risks, protect and improve human health, and improve the quality of life for children in Providence.

“EPA is very pleased to continue working with the Childhood Lead Action Project and their partners. Reducing lead exposure for children is a critical issue for EPA, and to families, both across New England and right here in Providence,” said EPA New England Regional Administrator Dennis Deziel.

“We’re honored to receive EPA support for our work to prevent lead poisoning,” said Laura Brion, Executive Director of the Childhood Lead Action Project. “As an organization founded by parents of lead poisoned children, we believe strongly that everyone deserves to grow up in a healthy, lead-safe environment, and we are dedicated to making sure that families affected by this issue have a say in making that happen. This grant will allow us to boost community-level awareness and leadership to address lead in paint, soil, and drinking water, and coordinate with city and state partners who have pledged to take action to protect families, tenants, and workers from lead hazards.”

The Childhood Lead Action Project’s “Providence Lead Compliance Project” will reduce childhood lead exposure in Providence, by providing lead-poisoning education, training and encouraging community-building efforts. The Childhood Lead Action Project’s objectives are to: develop community-level environmental leadership and capacity by facilitating a Providence Lead Compliance Project steering committee, increase local families abilities to reduce lead hazards in the home by providing lead poisoning prevention training to parents and their child care provider, conduct lead-safe work practices training and worker safety, and strengthen institutional relationships and increase supply of lead-safe housing by working with state and local officials to identify unsafe rental housing and coordinate lead prevention enforcement and related efforts.

Background

EPA New England’s Healthy Communities Grant Program combines resources from several EPA programs to strategically address the environmental and public health issues burdening New England communities. Contributing programs include Air Quality Outreach, Assistance & Pollution Prevention, Asthma and Indoor Air, Children’s Environmental Health, Clean, Green and Healthy Schools Initiative, Toxics and Pesticides, Urban Environmental Program, and Water Infrastructure (Stormwater, Wastewater, and Drinking Water). The program has competitively selected projects that will: assess, understand, and reduce environmental and human health risks; increase collaboration through community-based projects; build institutional and community capacity to understand and solve environmental and human health problems; advance emergency preparedness and resilience; and achieve measurable environmental and human health benefits in communities across New England.

The projects that have been awarded funding must meet several criteria including: (1) location in /or directly benefit one or more of the EPA’s identified Target Investment Areas; and (2) identify how the proposed project will achieve measurable environmental and/or public health results in one or more of the EPA’s identified Target Program Areas. In 2019, the Target Investment Areas included: Areas Needing to Create Community Resilience; Environmental Justice Areas of Potential Concern; and Sensitive Populations. Target Program Areas included: Clean, Green and Healthy Schools; Community and Water Infrastructure Resilience; Healthy Indoor Environments; and Healthy Outdoor Environments.

More information about the Healthy Communities Grant Program: https://www3.epa.gov/region1/eco/uep/hcgp.html.

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