The PG&E Corporation Foundation has officially announced a grant worth $900,000, and it will disburse the same through two distinct programs to support climate resilience efforts in PG&E’s hometowns, while simultaneously protecting and restoring land, water, and air in habitats and communities across California.
According to certain reports, the stated two initiatives happen to include Better Together Nature Positive Innovation grant program, a program under which PG&E Foundation has awarded a combined $500,000 to five grantees — $100,000 in each of PG&E’s five Northern and Central California regions. Each of the awardees here has been markedly working to preserve California’s unique biodiversity, focusing on land, air quality and water stewardship.
The second initiative, acting as a medium for PG&E’s overarching grant is Resilience Hubs grant program. Here, the company delivered a total of $400,000 to seven grantees — three $100,000 and four $25,000 grants to support communities in building a network of local climate resilience hubs.
Having talked about the initial bits and bobs, we now must turn our attention towards the organizations that did make the cut for this promised inflow of cash.
Starting with the Better Together program, there is Land Partners Through Stewardship / LandPaths, an organization hailing from Sonoma County who will use the new funds to support workforce development in forestry and fire management, as well as build a sustainable forest management and prescribed burning program.
The next beneficiary in line would be El Dorado Fire Safe Council, who like the name suggests, comes from El Dorado County. In essence, the council will deploy the money to provide financial assistance for seniors, veterans, disabled individuals, and low-income households to make their homes more resilient to wildfires by performing defensible space work.
Joining the mix is Canopy, who rose out of San Mateo county and will invest the PG&E grant in delivering paid internship positions to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students living or attending high school in East Palo Alto, as part of the Teen Urban Forester program which supports expansion of the area’s canopy cover.
Kitchen Table Advisors was also deemed qualified for PG&E’s grant, with the organization now well-equipped to support small-scale, socially disadvantaged regenerative farmers in the context of adopting and implementing conservation, as well as climate smart agricultural practices on their farmlands.
The last beneficiary of Better Together program is Sierra Foothill Conservancy, who strives to expand capacity for cultural prescribed burn facilitation, interpretive elements, and public outreach, tribal placemaking, and indigenous workforce development. Not just that, it also aims to increase community resilience against natural disasters.
“PG&E is committed to working with our local partners to develop new and innovative ways to build resilience amid the increasing impacts of climate change, as outlined in our Climate Strategy Report. We are all in this together and we simply cannot do this important work without these partner organizations helping to increase climate resilience and supporting equity in the communities we are so privileged to serve,” said Carla Peterman, Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs and Chief Sustainability Officer for PG&E Corporation.
Moving on to the beneficiaries of Resilience Hubs grant program, they include Empowering Marginalized Asian Communities, who will use the funds to assess the needs of a resilience hub at its offices, including staff training and assembling emergency preparedness kits.
Next up, there would be A. Philip Randolph Institute, San Francisco. The stated Institute will effectively direct the grant towards creating an extreme heat and poor air quality strategy to prepare local organizations for disaster preparedness and response roles.
Another beneficiary in play is Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries, whose plan with the new grant involves creating a comprehensive, community-driven plan for a resilience hub in one of California’s most disadvantaged communities so to give them a safe haven during climate emergencies. This it will do while serving as a year-round resource center.
Rounding up the list is California Interfaith Power & Light, an organization looking to determine the requirements and scope of a congregational climate resilience hub at the First Unitarian Church in West Oakland to best serve the community.
