Thank you St.Croix Valley Foundation!
St. Croix CURES was notified that their grant to the St. Croix Valley Foundation was funded. The grant application entitled, Protecting the St. Croix River for Generations Grant will protect and improve the health of the St. Croix River watershed through education and events, public engagement, groundwater protection, civic advocacy, and partnership building. Working with esidents, local governments, youth, and conservation organizations.
CURES will expand nitrate awareness and well testing, promote watershed stewardship, support local water protection efforts, and strengthen community capacity to build a conservation-minded community.
This is the second year that St. Croix CURES was awarded an environmental grant from the St. Croix Valley Foundation. During the first year, the grant assisted in the establishment of CURES as a non-profit organization. The Wisconsin Conservation Voices out of Madison helped CURES by being their fiscal sponsor.
Over the last year, grant funds directly supported public forums, target-market tabling, and hands on community education. CURES organized the inaugural St.Croix River Watershed Clean Food and Water Forum, a premier event drawing over 150 participants across the St. Croix Valley. Funding brought in nationally recognized speakers to focus on public health and land stewardship, while youth were actively integrated into the event through presentations on advanced visual watershed mapping and a children's presentation on the water cycle. Following the forum, CURES sustained watershed education by hosting a targeted Zoom session led by local experts, providing critical information to residents and municipal decision-makers on utilizing local Operational Ordinances to protect rural townships.
To further expand our public outreach, CURES partnered with Wisconsin Conservation Voices to screen documentaries highlighting industrial agriculture’s impact on local families, farms, and businesses. In tandem with this partnership, CURES volunteers went door-to-door in high-nitrate areas to educate homeowners and distribute free water screening kits. Our spring landowner conservation event focused on actionable steps like tree, prairie, and native planting. Our events and sessions were recorded and broadly distributed via a partnership with the River Channel. Local youth are presently engaged through a clean-water themed art poster showcase.
Finally, grant resources empowered CURES to bridge the gap between education and policy. Volunteers advocated directly at municipal meetings, educating county and town board members on watershed protection and ordinances vital to protecting local rural wells. Through these targeted initiatives, the grant successfully financed the tools, partnerships, and events necessary to pivot St. Croix Valley residents from passive awareness to active watershed stewardship.
“We are deeply grateful to the St. Croix Valley Foundation for investing in the future of clean water in our region. This grant will help us bring people together to better understand the growing challenges facing our groundwater, private wells, lakes, and rivers. Through education, workshops, and collaboration, we hope to turn awareness into action and build a strong culture of water stewardship.”