Upstate nonprofit earns national environmental grant

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Greenville nonprofit Sustaining Way was awarded a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Grant last week along with 99 other recipients across the country.

Sustaining Way is an interfaith organization that upgrades underutilized properties in marginalized communities to become neighborhood hubs for education, environmental stewardship and employment.

The $75,000 Environmental Justice Small Grant was distributed to organizations that engage in bolstering opportunities for air monitoring, food access, community planning, water treatment education, community agriculture, green jobs, emergency preparation, toxic exposure clean-up, water quality and healthy homes.

Sustaining Way’s recent projects include Annie’s House, an agricultural and renewable energy demonstration site at 60 Baxter St. in Nicholtown, farm-to-table food distribution, youth leadership program and backyard garden initiative. Upstate Forever also recognized the nonprofit in February with the Environmental Equity and Justice Award.

“EPA is committed to supporting local partnerships that will help address the challenges that many underserved communities face in the Southeast,” EPA Region 4 Administrator Daniel Blackman, administrator of the EPA’s Region 4, said in a news release. “Grants such as these help to build on our relationships with our local partners to address environmental justice challenges in their communities.”