Loon Echo LT environmental education grants awarded to area schools, libraries

BRIDGTON — Loon Echo Land Trust has announce the recipients of its 2019 Environmental Education Grant Program. Loon Echo has awarded grants to Raymond Village Library, Naples Public Library, Spaulding Memorial Library in Sebago, Harrison Elementary School and Sebago Elementary School.
Every year, schools and libraries in Loon Echo’s service area of Denmark, Bridgton, Harrison, Naples, Casco, Raymond and Sebago are invited to submit grant applications for environmental programs. These awards will help Lake Region children learn about the environment and the importance of protecting the region’s land and natural resources.
These Environmental Educational Grants were developed as a memorial to local teachers Helen Allen and Polly Bartlett. Allen owned a beautiful hilltop farm on Quaker Ridge in Casco, looking out to the western foothills and Mt. Washington. She was one of the first to grant Loon Echo a conservation easement on her 60-acre property so it would be protected in perpetuity. After her death at the age of 94, Allen’s bequest to Loon Echo allowed it to create an endowed environmental education fund to support yearly programs in local schools and libraries.
Polly Bartlett was one of the original board members of Loon Echo. A teacher at Sebago Elementary School, each year she treated her third-graders to a winter walk at Maine Audubon. When she died in 2000 at the age of 48, the trust created a fund in her memory to ensure third graders at Sebago Elementary would always take their winter walk.
For more information on the program’s history, or how to contribute to Loon Echo’s education fund, visit www.loonecholandtrust.org or call 207-647-4352.
Loon Echo Land Trust is a member-supported, non-profit land trust that works to protect the land and natural resources of the northern Sebago Lake region for future generations. Loon Echo conserves over 8,000 acres of land and manages 32 miles of hiking and biking trails in the towns of Bridgton, Casco, Denmark, Harrison, Naples, Raymond and Sebago. For more information on its preserves, upcoming events or how to get involved, visit lelt.org.