GRANTS IN ACTION

Twice a year, Saint Paul Bird Alliance (SPBA) awards grants that support our mission of engaging our community in enjoying, understanding, and protecting birds and the habitats all living beings need to thrive.

Providing grants to community organizations that are implementing projects is a powerful way to increase SPBA’s impact. We are grateful to donors who enable us to make these grants. Here is a summary of our latest round of grant recipients.

If you donate to Saint Paul Bird Alliance, thank you!   Your dollars made these grants possible. 

MYBirdClub:
MYBirdClub specializes in professionally guided field trips that connect youth (and their families) to birds and birding. Our youth-centered bird club gives kids a safe space to build peer friendships and explore and nurture their interest in birds and nature. This grant will assist in offering six or more fall/winter 2023 birding outings in the east metro area at no cost for any youth (or their accompanying adults).

Frogtown Green:
We want to make Frogtown the greenest and most sustainable neighborhood in St Paul. We grow crops, plant trees, promote parks, share information, and celebrate Frogtown, our neighbors, and nature.  This grant will assist with several critical projects for youth education programs, tree planting, pollinator gardens, and building materials for a Chimney Swift tower.

The Creative Enterprise Zone:
The Creative Enterprise Zone is a city-recognized district and a nonprofit organization with a dedicated mission to “attract and support creative people and businesses to #MakeItHere” (South Saint Anthony Park and part of the Midway neighborhood.) This grant will support our 100 Trees Initiative.  It is a volunteer-led grassroots effort to grow and plant 100 new street trees each year to expand the urban tree canopy, improve air and water quality, increase habitat for wildlife, and reduce the heat index in a primarily industrial district in Saint Paul.

Urban Bird Collective 
Projects and events will increase BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people’s participation in birding. These include recruiting new and diverse volunteers for the Winter Bird count, monitoring Chimney Swift nests and roosts in the Twin Cities metro, hosting Swift Night Out community events, conserving Pig’s Eye Park, and developing UBC leaders.

Maplewood Nature Center
Support Phase 2 of a Maplewood Nature Center project as they conduct additional native plantings to benefit birds and pollinators.

St. Paul Creative Zone Enterprise
Fund the 100 Trees Initiative, a grassroots effort to plant and care for 100 street trees in a semi-industrial area beyond what the city can provide. The purpose is to expand the urban tree canopy, improve air and water quality, increase wildlife habitat, and reduce the heat island effect.

We support the Bee Line wildlife data project, which enhances native plant plantings along Pierce Butler Route in St. Paul. We also set up three trail cameras to observe and generate awareness about urban wildlife.
Establish a donated lot for ecosystem restoration and community education. Highlights include small group activities for all ages, rain gardening, wildlife feeding stations, bird listening devices and cameras for data collection/citizen science.
Provide funding to establish a new prairie plot along Hamline Avenue in St. Paul, plant insect- and songbird friendly trees; and partner with Great River Greening on prairie management.

Metro Blooms:
Metro Blooms is a nonprofit that partners with communities, property owners, organizations, and local governments to create resilient landscapes and foster clean watersheds, embracing the values of equity and inclusion to solve environmental challenges. Your grant will support the Battle Creek native plant garden project. The gardens will demonstrate how to use native plants in an intentionally designed landscape. It will include informational signage about the plants and direct visitors to more online resources to share education about the incorporation of native plants in their own homes and community landscapes.

Red-Headed Woodpecker Recovery Project:
Our project is reversing the decline and promoting the recovery of Red-headed Woodpeckers through habitat conversion and preservation, research, and education. The grant will assist in paying seasonal research technicians for the necessary fieldwork.

Cedar Creek Ecosystem Reserve:
Cedar Creek Ecosystem Reserve is 9 square miles of nature, including grasslands, wetlands, coniferous and hardwood forests, and some of the state’s most extensive remaining tracts of oak savanna. We aim to build a science literacy and learning pathway through engaging hands-on experiences at a world-renowned field station. This grant money will support up to 10 field trips from St. Paul Public Schools in the spring of 2023 and the 2023-2024 school year.

Carpenter St. Croix Valley Nature Center:
(CNC) is a private, nonprofit environmental education facility encompassing 725 acres of prairie, forest, and riparian wildlife habitat in the scenic St. Croix Valley. The grant dollars will support a study to inform land managers on the positive, neutral, or negative impacts of re-introducing bison as it relates to grassland nesting birds.

Como Community Council:
The Como Community Council is an independent, nonprofit organization accountable to the community. We are dedicated to creating a vibrant, safe, welcoming neighborhood for renters, homeowners, businesses, and other organizations.  Your grant dollars will support the  Como Tree Trek.   It includes two guided events every year in Como Park as well as 42 tree identification tags on 39 species of trees and a map of these tags on our website to allow community members to take a self-guided Tree Trek.

University of Belize Environmental Research Center:
UB ERI’s mission is “to continuously build national scientific capacity for the efficient management, sustainable use and conservation of Belize’s natural resources.” Your grant dollars support our project that aims to increase the awareness of bird conservation among a larger group of students and allow them to become involved in birding activities.

Osprey Wilds:
Osprey Wilds is a residential environmental learning center in Pine County whose mission is to instill a connection and commitment to the environment in people of all communities through experiential learning. More than 3,000 K-12 students visit annually for immersive, multi-day learning experiences. Your grant money will assist in updating existing corvid enclosures to improve the experience for the animal ambassadors housed there, the animal training staff that work with the birds, and the learning experience for the onsite participants.