Great Idea Challenge 2016

Do you (or someone you know) have an idea that will make the Stillwater Area an even better place to live, work and play? The Stillwater Area includes: Lake Elmo, Bayport, Marine-on-St. Croix, Oak Park Heights, West Lakeland Township, Stillwater Township and Stillwater.

The Stillwater Area Foundation’s 4th Annual Great Idea Challenge 2016 is awarding up to $10,000 to a person or group to implement the next Great Idea.  This year’s Challenge offers coaching sessions, to take place in February.  Coaches will help applicants discuss and further develop their idea and grant applications prior to submission in mid-April 2016.

The 2015 Great Idea award winner was the Pollinator Friendly Alliance.  Laurie Schneider, of Pollinator Friendly, believes the grant was instrumental in moving the group’s ideas forward.  She notes, “The award allowed the pollinator group to put legs under ideas we had been working on around Stillwater for a couple of years.”

The 2015 Great Idea award winner was the Pollinator Friendly Alliance.The Pollinator Friendly Alliance collaborated with the City of Stillwater, landscaping companies, gardeners, pollinator advocates and artists to design and install four pollinator friendly gardens, incorporate pollinator friendly habitats and practices along the highway 36 corridor and present over 100 awareness-education sessions in the area which garnered over 800 new members to their “hive.”  Many garden centers in the area have also committed to sell only pollinator-friendly plants and products to their customers, helping to create those friendly, healthy habitats throughout the Stillwater area.  For more information about their work go to www.pollinatorfriendly.org.

To apply for the 2016 Great Idea Award, to read about past winner’s projects and to begin putting the pieces of your Great Idea together, please go to the Stillwater Area Foundation website  www.stillwaterareafoundation.org.  The SAF will begin accepting applications in January 2016 and will assist applicants through the development process as requested.  Final application submission due date is April 15, 2016.  Please contact a member of the SAF Board if you have further questions.  The SAF is excited to hear about YOUR Great Idea.

The Stillwater Area Foundation is a community foundation affiliated with the St. Croix Valley Foundation.

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