Community Grants Program awards funding to local schools, churches

Five Long Beach Unified School District campuses and two local churches will become more energy efficient through the Port of Long Beach Community Grants Program.

The Long Beach Harbor Commission voted Monday to approve the projects, which total almost $1.5 million. The schools — Jordan High, Jordan Plus, Poly Academy of Achievers and Learners, King Elementary, and Elizabeth Hudson Elementary — will use funding to install indoor LED lighting and sensors. First Congregational Church of Long Beach will upgrade the facility’s chiller boiler along with doors, insulation, and indoor and outdoor lighting, while Pacific Baptist Church will install high performance windows and doors. More details of the awards can be found here.

“Whether it’s our quest for zero emissions, or these grants to mitigate how port operations impact our neighborhoods, being the Green Port takes many forms,” said Long Beach Harbor Commission President Sharon L. Weissman. “The Community Grants Program serves our social responsibility to improve the environment through very worthy projects such as these.”

“This is a highly successful program that has funded everything from mobile asthma services to stormwater runoff controls, and even planting 6,000 trees in our neighborhoods,” said Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero. “It’s part of our steadfast commitment to reduce our operational impacts while we build an ever more sustainable and ultimately zero-emissions seaport.”

The award-winning Community Grants Program is a more than $46 million effort to fund projects that help those in the community who are most vulnerable to port-related environmental impacts. These projects are expanding asthma services, controlling stormwater runoff through the building of permeable parking lots, and creating open space buffers between port operations and communities, to name a few. Combined with a previous program started in 2009, the Port of Long Beach has set aside more than $65 million, making it the largest voluntary port mitigation initiative in the country. To date, $34.2 million has been committed.