View of the Sound from Sands Point Preserve. Credit: NYSG/S. Schaefer-Brown

Contacts:

Elizabeth Hornstein, NYSG Sustainable and Resilient Communities Specialist, Suffolk County, E: eeh78@cornell.edu, Phone: (631) 824-4575

Sarah Schaefer-Brown, NYSG Sustainable and Resilient Communities Specialist, Nassau County, E: scs292@cornell.edu, Phone: (516) 832-2591

Sara Powell, NYSG Sustainable and Resilient Communities Specialist, Westchester County, E: slp285@cornell.edu, Phone: (914) 369-1591

The Long Island Sound Resilience Grant Writing Assistance Program is an innovative and responsive approach to increasing sustainable and resilient-focused project implementation across the Long Island Sound coastal watershed

Stony Brook, NY, March 25, 2024 - The work of the Long Island Sound Study (LISS) Sustainable and Resilient Communities (SRC) Work Group and New York Sea Grant (NYSG) SRC Extension Professionals, informed by a regional Needs Assessment conducted in 2021, has shown that for communities across NY and Connecticut (CT) obtaining funding is one of the main barriers to planning, designing, and implementing sustainability and resilience-focused projects.

The Long Island Sound Resilience Grant Writing Assistance Program was launched in November 2022 with funding from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through LISS and administered through NY and CT Sea Grants to address the lack of capacity, expertise, and resources to write grants and apply for funding. The Program is open to municipalities, nonprofits, and community organizations to facilitate the hiring of grant writing support to assist with the development of a grant proposal for sustainability and resilience-focused projects.

The first year of the Program has reduced staffing and capacity barriers in 17 communities within or partially within the Long Island Sound coastal boundary while allowing communities to develop capacity for navigating the funding landscape. Informed by the Program’s success and lessons learned in the inaugural year, the SRC Extension Professionals have sustained and extended the scope of support to more communities within the Long Island Sound Study coastal boundary in 2023-2024.

A successful first year of the Long Island Sound Resilience Grant Writing Assistance Program met the needs of diverse stakeholders and will continue to be adaptive as the SRC Extension Professionals take steps to tackle complex barriers to advancing the implementation of sustainable and resilient-focused projects in the region.

Project Partners:

• Long Island Sound Study
• Connecticut Sea Grant

Funding: 

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency


More Info: New York Sea Grant

New York Sea Grant (NYSG), a cooperative program of Cornell University and the State University of New York (SUNY), is one of 34 university-based programs under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program.

Since 1971, NYSG has represented a statewide network of integrated research, education and extension services promoting coastal community economic vitality, environmental sustainability and citizen awareness and understanding about the State’s marine and Great Lakes resources.

Through NYSG’s efforts, the combined talents of university scientists and extension specialists help develop and transfer science-based information to many coastal user groups—businesses and industries, federal, state and local government decision-makers and agency managers, educators, the media and the interested public.

The program maintains Great Lakes offices at Cornell University, SUNY Buffalo, Rochester Institute of Technology, SUNY Oswego, the Wayne County Cooperative Extension office in Newark, and in Watertown. In the State's marine waters, NYSG has offices at Stony Brook University and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County on Long Island, in Queens, at Brooklyn College, with Cornell Cooperative Extension in NYC, in Bronx, with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ulster County in Kingston, and with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Westchester County in Elmsford.

For updates on Sea Grant activities: www.nyseagrant.org has Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, and YouTube links. NYSG offers a free e-list sign up via www.nyseagrant.org/nycoastlines for its flagship publication, NY Coastlines/Currents, which is published quarterly.