More exciting news to share with you LSC!

The LSCA has been notified that we have earned 2 more grants from the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP) which will benefit Lake St. Catherine.

Education and Outreach

Back in June of 2021, Gina Ellis, Librarian at the Wells Village Library reached out to the LSCA and LSCCF to discuss organizing a 'Libraries Love Lakes' event for Lake St. Catherine. 

From their website, Libraries Love Lakes:

"...is an outreach project which pairs school and public libraries with lake scientists to provide collaborative programming emphasizing the importance of lakes in our everyday lives."

After an initial meeting, and numerous email exchanges, it was decided that we'd collectively work to put together a Libraries Love Lakes event at the lake in 2022.

Later in November, the LCBP announced an "Education and Outreach" implementation grant, which we thought would be very helpful to support the fun and educational Libraries Love Lakes event at the lake. 

Gina provided a detailed outline of her ideas for the event, which included books, and numerous activities for the day. Using this outline, we were able to craft our grant application and submit a comprehensive proposal.

We are very excited to announce that we have earned this Education and Outreach grant of $9,191 which will fund this fun-filled, family friendly, Libraries Love Lakes event at the lake!

The LCBP informed us that our proposal "received strong peer reviews" and that the "reviewers were supportive of funding this project which provides some interesting deliverables including the unique Libraries Love Lakes approach."

Pending planning and approvals, preliminary ideas include the event taking place in July at the Wells Lakeside Park. The event would include fun activities, presentations, and boat tours related to all aspects of the lake. Children will receive kits containing books, and science based activities for the day. 

After the event, the educational opportunities will continue at the Wells Village Library. Gina will be dedicating a section of the library for the LSCA with pertinent information and activities to further advance lake-related learning. Gina has identified a wide variety of lake-related books to launch this section of the library which we will be able to purchase via the grant.

This event also coincides with the 50th Anniversary of the the Clean Water Act, and supports the LCBP's Opportunities for Action: An Evolving Plan for the Future of the Lake Champlain Basin.

We'll let you know when we have the full details of the event and when the date is scheduled.

We are very excited to have earned this grant to support Gina's vision for the Libraries Love Lakes event - which we hope will become a yearly event! 

Organizational Support

We were also happy to learn that we have earned an Organizational Support grant to help fund the subscription to cloud-based project management software. 

The LSCA will be managing numerous projects in 2022, most importantly, the creation of the Lake St. Catherine Watershed Action Plan. This software will allow us to manage these important lake projects and collaborate with our parters on tasks, timelines, and documents, keeping us organized and on schedule.

Thank you LCBP!

We are very thankful for our partnership with the Lake Champlain Basin Program. This year, we will be working on projects related to 5 grants earned from LCBP, including: The Education and Outreach and Organizational Support grants mentioned above, the Lake St. Catherine Watershed Action Plan, the Lake St. Catherine Lake Wise Program, and a Clean Water and Healthy Ecosystems Projects Planning grant which will be used to design projects around the lake in support of the Lake St. Catherine Stormwater Master Plan.

We'll keep you up-to-date on all these projects throughout the year.