Grantee: KhaliphaGrant Amount: $60,000.00CCMP Themes: Thriving Habitats and Abundant Wildlife; Clean Waters and Healthy WatershedsLISCIF Program Priority: Projects that result in quantifiable pollutant prevention or reduction; Restoring habitat within the Important Coastal Habitat Types targeted by LIS Partnership; Projects that foster a diverse balance and abundant populations of fish, birds, and wildlife; Public engagement, knowledge, and stewardship; Projects that enhance community resilience and sustainability; Planning and design that set-the-stage for implementation of water quality projects, eligible habitat restoration projects and resilience projects.
Tileeh: A Riparian Buffer Restoration, Education, and Community Stewardship Initiative is a partnership-driven project focused on restoring priority sections of an approximately 8.8-acre riparian corridor along the Hutchinson River in Mount Vernon, New York. The project responds to long-standing environmental challenges in the city, where aging infrastructure, flooding, and degraded waterways have placed significant strain on local neighborhoods. Working closely with the Hutchinson River Restoration Project, the City of Mount Vernon, and the Westchester County Soil & Water Conservation District, Tileeh will combine ecological assessment, targeted habitat restoration, and accessible environmental education for both children and adults. Khalipha is also collaborating with graduate students in Columbia University’s Urban Planning Studio, who are studying land ownership, open space, stormwater conditions, and access along the corridor to help inform long-term restoration and connectivity planning linking Project Kiana, Migui Park, and Tileeh. In the first year, the project will secure required insurance, obtain necessary permitting from the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) with support from the Westchester County Soil & Water Conservation District, and complete environmental and ecological assessments to identify site conditions and priority restoration areas. Monthly cleanups, stewardship gatherings, storytelling circles, and shared meals will build a network of residents engaged in caring for the river. In the second phase, the project will implement invasive species removal and native plant and tree installation in priority areas, culminating in a community river gathering to celebrate progress and strengthen long-term local stewardship of this important tributary to the Long Island Sound.
Grantee: Energy Justice Law and Policy CenterGrant Amount: $100,000.00CCMP Themes: Sustainable and Resilient Communities; Informed and Engaged PublicLISCIF Program Priority: Public engagement, knowledge, and stewardship; Projects that enhance community resilience and sustainability; Planning and design that set-the-stage for implementation of water quality projects, eligible habitat restoration projects and resilience projects.
This project will support a community planning and learning process to activate a permanent Coastal Learning Center at Five Islands Park in New Rochelle. With support from LISCIF, we grew the Eco-Ambassadors program into a successful marine science education and leadership initiative for underserved youth at the coastal pavilion. In partnership with the City of New Rochelle and certified district teachers, we offer 6-week summer marine science programs for high school students and hire recent graduates as interns. Interns often go on to pursue science in college, and students continue into science and sustainability activities during the year. This trusted program now anchors year-round community coastal learning and stewardship in New Rochelle. A key goal of earlier LISCIF-supported work was to lay the groundwork for a permanent Coastal Learning Center and expand marine learning opportunities in New Rochelle, both in the community and in school curriculum. Our success in this work helped EJLPC and the City of New Rochelle secure a $700,000 New York State grant to renovate the Five Islands Park pavilion from a seasonal facility into a permanent center. This will be the first center of its kind in Westchester and will focus on stewardship, experiential sound shore learning, and urban coastal resilience. NYS capital funds will renovate the facility. The 2025 LISCIF grant sustains youth programming. However, there is currently no funding to build the organizational capacity and community planning needed to activate the Center, maintain programming during construction, or identify shoreline and watershed priorities for future phases. This project addresses that gap. With consultant support and staff time, we will engage in community planning, stewardship planning, and organizational capacity building while expanding Sound Shore public engagement. Through community workshops, stakeholder discussions, and participant surveys, residents will give input and learn about the ecological importance of the Sound shoreline stewardship. This engagement will increase community awareness and participation while informing the Center’s future programs and priorities. We will develop three planning outputs: (a) a community-based and partner informed plan for access, programming, and long-term Center use; (b) a resilience and stewardship options summary that aligns shoreline studies and assessments with community priorities; and (c) a plan for organizational readiness, program continuity, and partnerships during renovation, including strengthened curriculum and workforce collaborations.
Grantee: Environmental Leaders of ColorGrant Amount: $100,000.00LISCIF Program Priority: Projects that result in quantifiable pollutant prevention or reduction; public engagement, knowledge, and stewardship; projects that enhance community resilience and sustainability.
Building on two successful years, ELOC’s “Don’t Strain Your Drain” campaign continues to protect underserved communities along Long Island Sound’s tributary watersheds in Westchester County from environmental harm caused by improper household waste disposal. Year 3 expands from our core communities—Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, and Port Chester—to additional marginalized areas, including Tuckahoe, Village of Mamaroneck, and areas in Pelham and Eastchester along the Hutchinson River. Student Environmental Ambassadors from Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, and Port Chester will lead education campaigns about proper disposal of fats, oils, grease (FOG), medications, personal care products, pesticides, and other household pollutants that contaminate local rivers and Long Island Sound. Our expanded “Don’t Pour Your Feast Grease Down the Drain” initiative targets major holidays when cooking oil disposal peaks. While our messaging reaches all watershed communities—including affluent areas like Scarsdale, Larchmont, and Rye—and all residents must help protect our shared waterways, our outreach prioritizes underserved populations who face disproportionate water quality issues due to aging infrastructure, sewage overflows, and limited access to disposal resources. Volunteers from affluent communities support our work while we promote clean water for all.
Grantee: Hutchinson River Restoration ProjectGrant Amount: $60,000.00LISCIF Program Priority: Restoring habitat within the Important Coastal Habitat Types targeted by LIS Partnership; public engagement, knowledge, and stewardship; projects that enhance community resilience and sustainability.
Hutchinson River Restoration Project is a bottom-up grassroots volunteer organization with a dedicated and hardworking Board of Directors. It has become apparent, however, that to effectively address the enormity of the organization’s goals, it must evolve as an organization and develop its organizational capacity. The purpose of this proposal is to build and strengthen HRRP’s capacity to increase its effectiveness in restoring the long-term health of the Hutchinson River and its environs. HRRP must grow and evolve beyond a volunteer-based organization and restructure itself to include additional staff personnel. Additional personnel include a Boat/Field Manager and an Administrative Assistant, as well as two Interns. These staff positions are needed to help manage the growth and development of the organization’s activities, programs and events. Funding for these staff positions will help to expand the organization’s ability to: recruit, organize and manage volunteers for clean-up activities, organize and manage the tablings at community events and farmers’ markets, and increase outreach to the public at large and to community organizations and officials. The Boat/Field Manager will help to care for the HRRP boat and help take people out onto the Hutchinson River for the organization’s educational EcoTours. The Administrative Assistant will support all back-office activities such as financial reporting, distributing and writing newsletters, website revisions, upkeep of contacts, and other outreach communications. Two interns will be recruited to support the organization’s activities and will be mentored in restoration and stewardship of the river.
Grantee: City as Living Laboratory  Grant Amount: $100,000.00LISCIF Program Priority: Public engagement, knowledge, and stewardship; projects that enhance community resilience and sustainability; planning and design that set-the-stage for implementation of water quality projects, eligible habitat restoration projects and resilience projects.
WaterWays is being developed by City as Living Laboratory. CALL’s approach follows an interactive and flexible framework, which consists of a series of exploratory activities, such as walks, workshops, and projects. WaterWays began in 2024 as a partnership with renowned urban ecologist Eric Sanderson of the NY Botanical Garden and the NYC Department of Environmental Protection. With the support of the Long Island Sound Community Impact Fund, CALL will organize four public walks and workshops hosted at accessible community venues that will explore neighborhood flood pathways, buried waterways, and the relationship between Flushing WaterWays and the Long Island Sound with approximately 150 residents and community stakeholders. In addition to continued programming with our two inaugural Cloudburst artists. CALL will also work with our Neighborhood Advisory Team composed of hyper-local community leaders and organizers to find and commission two additional Cloudburst artists who will develop public-facing projects that translate environmental research and community knowledge into accessible formats such as installations, printed materials, and/or public storytelling platforms that will reach thousands of additional community members. To ensure successful engagement, we will translate all materials into English and Spanish. By July 2027, the project will ensure that Corona residents have gained the knowledge, tools, and networks.
Grantee: Energy Justice Law and Policy CenterGrant Amount: $100,000.00CCMP Themes: Sustainable and Resilient Communities; Informed and Engaged Public
LISCIF Program Priority: Public engagement, knowledge, and stewardship; projects that enhance community resilience and sustainability; planning and design that set-the-stage for implementation of water quality projects; eligible habitat restoration projects and resilience projects.
This project will support a community planning and learning process to activate a permanent Coastal Learning Center at Five Islands Park in New Rochelle. With support from LISCIF, we grew the Eco-Ambassadors program into a successful marine science education and leadership initiative for underserved youth at the coastal pavilion.
In partnership with the City of New Rochelle and certified district teachers, we offer 6-week summer marine science programs for high school students and hire recent graduates as interns. Interns often go on to pursue science in college, and students continue into science and sustainability activities during the year. This trusted program now anchors year-round community coastal learning and stewardship in New Rochelle. A key goal of earlier LISCIF-supported work was to lay the groundwork for a permanent Coastal Learning Center and expand marine learning opportunities in New Rochelle, both in the community and in school curriculum. Our success in this work helped EJLPC and the City of New Rochelle secure a $700,000 New York State grant to renovate the Five Islands Park pavilion from a seasonal facility into a permanent Center. This will be the first center of its kind in Westchester and will focus on stewardship, experiential sound shore learning, and urban coastal resilience. NYS capital funds will renovate the facility. The 2025 LISCIF grant sustains youth programming. However, there is currently no funding to build the organizational capacity and community planning needed to activate the Center, maintain programming during construction, or identify shoreline and watershed priorities for future phases. This project addresses that gap. With consultant support and staff time, we will engage in community planning, stewardship planning, and organizational capacity building while expanding Sound Shore public engagement. Through community workshops, stakeholder discussions, and participant surveys, residents will give input and learn about the ecological importance of the Sound shoreline stewardship. This engagement will increase community awareness and participation while informing the Center’s future programs and priorities. We will develop three planning outputs: (a) a community-based and partner informed plan for access, programming, and long-term Center use; (b) a resilience and stewardship options summary that aligns shoreline studies and assessments with community priorities; and (c) a plan for organizational readiness, program continuity, and partnerships during renovation, including strengthened curriculum and workforce collaborations.
Grantee: Metoac Indigenous CollectiveGrant Amount: $99,995.10LISCIF Program Priority: Public engagement, knowledge, and stewardship.
The Rematriating Water Initiative seeks to address the need to restore the inherent kinship between the Indigenous Peoples of Long Island and the waters surrounding their ancestral territories, including the Long Island Sound. This Indi genous-led initiative would serve as a resource to engage and educate local community stakeholders about the Long Island Sound and its watershed through an Indigenous lens while fortifying relationships. Indigenous peoples have stewarded the lands and waters of Long Island since time immemorial and in present day their fundamental responsibility, reverence, and interconnected kinship to these relatives is still honored. Rematriation is a concept rooted in Indigeneity that centers traditional matriarchal leadership related to stewarding and protecting lands and waters. This concept challenges extractive patriarchal and repatriation practices, which lack integrity and intentional reconciliation, by restoring sacred relationships between Indigenous Peoples, their ancestral lands, waters, lifeways, and allowing for interconnected healing. This initiative will consist of facilitating educational programming such as birdwatching/nature walks, boat/paddle tours, beach/land clean-ups, creating a wampum belt as a traditional educational tool, and webinars led by Indigenous knowledge holders and culture bearers for Indigenous and other local stakeholders to attend. These stakeholders will be informed about ancestral ecological knowledge, strategies for appropriate stewardship efforts, and practices centered in reciprocity resulting in a profound understanding of the essentiality of land and water conservation. These efforts will encourage active participation in the protection, stewardship, and sustainability of Long Island’s natural resources, specifically the Long Island Sound, its watershed, surrounding lands, and waters.
Grantee: University Settlement Society of New YorkGrant Amount: $91,740.00LISCIF Program Priority: Public engagement, knowledge, and stewardship; Projects that enhance community resilience and sustainability; Community-based science projects.
Salt marshes are critical to the health of the Long Island Sound. Maintaining marshes protects our region from some of the worst consequences of sea level rise, but there are many open questions about how to best conserve and restore these unique habitats. Further, most communities living near the Sound are unaware of the importance of salt marshes, nor are they actively involved in marsh restoration. Our multi-institutional collaboration will engage communities around the study of the Sound’s salt marshes. This collaboration will be hosted at the Lower East River Lab: a first-of-its-kind community lab, situated within a NYC public school building and opening in early 2026. Supervised by a newly hired Lab Director, with LISCIF support, high schoolers will work as paid interns; internships will involve field sampling at sites around the Sound, with mentorship from Dr. McClenachan of Stony Brook University. Interns will then develop hands-on educational activities to foster understanding of the connections between sea level rise, salt marsh ecology, and community resilience. These activities will be developed at the Lab and then shared with wider audiences, culminating in deployment at the Viva La Sound Festival on City Island.
Grantee: The Ward Melville Heritage OrganizationGrant Amount: $11,955.00LISCIF Program Priority: Public engagement, knowledge, and stewardship; Projects that enhance communityresilience and sustainability; Community-based science projects.
The Ward Melville Heritage Organization (WMHO) operates the Long Island Sound Connections (LISC) program through the Erwin J. Ernst Marine Conservation Center, located on WMHO’s 88-acre wetlands preserve at West Meadow Creek in East Setauket. Over the 2026-2027 school year, the program will serve approximately 240 fifth and sixth-grade students, engaging youth from Long Island and Connecticut in STEM-based, conservation focused learning that connects classroom study with real-world field research on the Long Island Sound ecosystem. Students participate in hands-on environmental monitoring, including measuring dissolved oxygen, salinity, turbidity, and temperature; conducting biodiversity and species identification surveys; assessing wetland and watershed habitat conditions; and analyzing the relationship between land use and water quality. New York students carry out field investigations at the MCC wetlands preserve, while Connecticut students study urban watershed systems in Bridgeport. Through structured virtual exchanges, partner classrooms compare ecological findings across distinct habitats, such as suburban tidal wetlands and more urbanized river systems, examining similarities, differences, and human impacts. Guided by WMHO educators and university scientists, students analyze data, engage in authentic scientific inquiry, and contribute to a growing longitudinal monitoring archive.
The program culminates in a Long Island Sound Student Summit, where teams present research findings, propose stewardship strategies, and share their work with peers, educators, families, and community stakeholders, empowering participants to see themselves as citizen scientists committed to protecting this vital coastal ecosystem.
LISCIF26 Awardee Fact Sheet
Sign up to receive our newsletters and updates. Choose the topics that interest you most!
"*" indicates required fields