Salt Lake City (SLC) recently won a $5,000 grant from Stonyfield Organic to be used towards organic turf management. SLC began taking steps towards organic landscaping over a year ago through Pesticide Free SLC — a project that helped to establish its commitment to organic lawn care long before the Stonyfield grant. Pesticide Free SLC is a pilot project developed in collaboration with SLC’s Bright Cities partnership.
“The pilot we did with Healthy Babies Bright Futures made us a great candidate for Stonyfield’s initiative,” explains Bridget Stuchly, Program Manager for SLC Green, SLC’s Sustainability Department.
Pesticide Free SLC began in Spring 2017and encourages residents and businesses to explore organic land care resources online. By taking SLC’s Pesticide Free Pledge, residents receive a free yard sign. In the last year, over 300 signs have been distributed to SLC residents.
“We are always looking to implement the most innovative and healthy practices to achieve a better quality of life for our community members,” said SLC Mayor Biskupski.
Over 26 million kids play sports on fields and 65% of fields are sprayed with harmful pesticides. The Stonyfield award promotes a healthy change to non-toxic turf management. SLC’s Stonyfield award will be used to convert two fields at their Regional Athletic Complex, a city hub for youth and adult sports and events, to organic lawn care maintenance methods. According to their website, Stonyfield is always assessing new towns to team up with. More information can be found here.
SLC was able to successfully leverage an existing project as part of its Bright Cities work to achieve additional funding, resulting in bigger wins for SLC and its residents.
Is there a program or project that you think would benefit from our Bright Cities collaboration? Or, perhaps you’d like to start one?
To discuss this and anything else, please contact Bright Cities Program Director, Kyra Naumoff Shields at knaumoff@hbbf.org.
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