Quarterly Highlights—Winter 2008

2007 CARE National Workshop Most Successful Yet

CARE 

Mail Code 8001A 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 

1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW 

Washington, DC 20460 

Phone: 1-877-CARE-909 www.epa.gov/CARE 

Inside this Edition: 

CARE National Workshop. . . . . . . . . . . . p. 1 

CARE Communities in Action. . . . . . . p. 2-3 

Tools and Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 3 

CARE Site Visits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .p. 4 

With almost 50 communities in the CARE network, the CARE National 

Training Workshop on October 31, 2007 was the largest in CARE’s 

three-year history. The two-and-a-half day event was held at EPA 

Region 4 in Atlanta, Georgia. With more than 180 people attending, 

approximately half were from CARE community projects. 

EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson, EPA Region 4 Administrator 

J. I. Palmer, Jr., and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)/

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) Director 

Dr. Julie Gerberding opened the Workshop, commending local 

environmental health leaders for their continued dedication to solving 

some of the toughest environmental and health issues.

2008 CARE RFP Announced 

APPLY NOW! 

The 2008 CARE Cooperative 

Agreement Request for Proposals 

(RFP) is now available. Approximately $3 million available. 

Applications due March 17, 2008.

Visit the CARE Web site at 

www.epa.gov/CARE for application 

details. 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) program 

helps communities address risks from various sources of toxic pollutants in their local environment. 

New 2007 CARE Communities

Community Action for a Renewed Environment 

CAR E Program

In 2007, $3.4 million in 

cooperative agreements 

were made available to 

22 communities through 

the CARE program. 

Fifteen received level I 

and seven received level 

II grants. Since 2005, the 

CARE grants to reduce 

toxics in the environment 

have reached almost 50 

communities in 26 states. 

To read more about each 

of the 2007 CARE 

grantee communities represented in this map, visit 

www.epa.gov/CARE. 
Harambee House, Inc., in Savannah, Ga., along with EPA and ATSDR, set out in November to expand the group of partners supporting the work of both the CARE project and the 

EPA/ATSDR pilot project in the Hudson Hill and Woodville neighborhoods of Savannah. 

These neighborhoods are home to 1600 people, 97 percent of whom are people of color 

and 75.5 percent of whom live below the federal poverty level. The small, 4.4 square mile 

neighborhoods are surrounded by 17 industries, and residents are concerned about health 

risks—primarily air toxics. Partners were sought who could help identify community environmental and health concerns, document all sources of risks in communities and develop, 

prioritize and implement strategies to reduce health risks. 

New and old partners were invited to participate in a day-long Community Charetteon Saturday, Nov. 10 at the Epworth 

By the Sea Conference and Retreat Center on St. Simon’s Island to kick-off the Savannah Community Environmental 

Collaborative. Those who could not attend the Charettewere invited to a separate partners’ meeting at the Savannah Development Renewal Authority, and to an elected officials’ meeting at the Woodville Community Center. Potential project 

partners identified how their organizations can assist the communities in identifying and reducing environmental health 

risks. About 25 residents participated in the Charette, engaging in various visioning exercises that allowed participants to 

identify community concerns, vulnerabilities, and assets. At the Charette, the partners meeting and the elected officials’ 

meeting, old and new partners pledged to support the project. Attendees included Abena Ajanaku of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, Councilwoman Mary Osborne, Alderman Van Johnson, State Representative Bob Bryant, 

Chatham County Commission Chairman Pete Liakikas, Chatham County Health Department Rep. Doris Brown, the VP of 

NAACP, and representatives from DNR, the Savannah Development Renewal Authority (SDRA) and several local 

churches, among others. Many partners voiced specific resource commitments to support the CARE project, perhaps 

most notably SDRA that committed to help with everything from meeting space and typing, to generating GIS maps and 

doing research for the project. 

 

CARE Communities in Action 

Page 2 U.S. EPA CARE Program: Quarterly Highlights—January 2008

Participants in the Community 

Charette envision what their 

neighborhoods could look like 

using Legos®. 

Joining Together 

The Tacoma-Pierce County 

Health Department, a Level I 

CARE project located in Tacoma, 

Washington, is continuing to build 

its partnership. The group has used 

a few strategies to build the partnerships: hosting field trips, holding 

meetings at different locations, and 

that inviting speakers from different 

organizations who contribute to the 

groups knowledge while learning 

about the coalition’s work. 

The Pueblo C.A.R.E.S. Project, a 

Level 1 grant in Southern 

Colorado, has partnered with 

another CARE project, Denver 

HAND, to learn from HAND’s 

experiences as Pueblo C.A.R.E.S. 

begins mapping out a schedule for 

creating and prioritizing its 

inventory of toxic exposures. Pueblo 

C.A.R.E.S. is also addressing mold 

problems caused by flooding, and 

the director of HAND was able to 

share his knowledge and provide 

some information on this issue from 

his work with the cleanup in New 

Orleans. 

The Muskegon County Environmental Coordinating Council 

(MCECC), a Level II CARE grantee 

in Muskegon, Michigan, is 

partnering with Digital Spectrum 

Enterprises to develop a half-hour 

documentary on two of the community’s priorities, lead contamination 

and air quality. The documentary 

DVD will be distributed throughout 

the state via the local television 

stations, intermediate school 

districts, college and university 

television and radio stations, public 

service announcements, local doctors’ offices, and the public libraries. 

Identifying Problems and Solutions 

Read community successes along the four steps 

in the CARE process: joining together, identifying 

problems & solutions, implementing solutions & 

reducing risks, and becoming self-sustaining. 
U.S. EPA CARE Program: Quarterly Highlights—January 2008 Page 3 

Becoming Self-Sustaining 

The Boston Public Health Commission's Safe Shops Tool Kit is officially 

on-line and available for use. The Commission (2006 Level II CARE grantee) 

developed the Safe Shops Tool Kit to describe the Safe Shops outreach 

strategies and successes and provide the tools and resources to help neighborhoods around the world to proactively address auto shop pollution prevention. 

To view or download the Safe Shops Tool Kit, visit: www.bphc.org/bphc/

safeshops_toolkit.asp. Other auto shop educational material and information 

about the Safe Shops Project can be found at: www.bphc.org/safeshops. For 

further information, contact Tiffany Skogstrom at 617-534-5966 or 

Tiffany_Skogstrom@bphc.org. 

The CARE network has enabled leveraging of resources between grantees in the Northeast. The CARE project of 

New Haven is lending their handheld particulate matter (PM) counter to the Pioneer Valley/Hampden County 

CARE (Holyoke, MA) “Community Soot Patrol,” diesel exhaust education project. Giovanni Zinn of New Haven had 

written a simple instruction protocol with data sheets for his New Haven youth groups to follow, which were perfect, 

transferable products to go along with the PM handheld counter. EPA Project Officer Marybeth Smuts is also 

working with Northeast States Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), the CARE grantee for Camden, 

New Jersey, to borrow four of their black carbon monitors and their technical personnel for a month of sampling 

during January or February. 

Safe Shops Tool Kit 

• MCECC is partnering with Berrien County, Michigan, to develop a guidebook on ordinance development for 

local governments. The creation of this document may assist other local governments in developing a variety of 

ordinances, with special focus on environmental health issues such as lead. 

• In St. Louis’ Grace Hill Clean Air Project, 176 residents used one bottle of green cleaner instead of one 

bottle of commercial cleaner, 56 participants of whom were participants in the Neighborhood College/Clean Air 

class. Also, Grace Hill took advantage of two partnerships to put on a metal finishers/electroplaters workshop, 

and an auto-body workshop. The first was coordinated by Marie Steinwachs, who collaborated with Grace Hill 

to organize and present the metal finishers workshop. The second was coordinated by EPA with the help of 

Grace Hill and other partners. Grace Hill effectively leveraged their partnerships and offered their resources and 

connections in order to support and assist the workshop efforts. More than 70 individuals participated in the two 

workshops. 

• The Tucson, Arizona, project achieved environmental results in multiple areas. 39 promotoras, or community 

outreach workers, completed environmental health training offered by the CARE project. Promatoras 

succeeded in completing a total of 673 home visits and 1,420 screening tests for lead. Fifty-eight tests were 

positive, representing 39 homes, and items testing positive were replaced. Project leaders also gave a 

presentation to 16 people on childhood lead poisoning prevention. In addition, project partners distributed 230 

trees to families, resulting in 84,426.1 lbs of pollution prevented. 

Southwest Detroit/South Dearborn Environmental Collaborative (SD2EC) conducted five focus groups with a 

total of 45 participants and collected 150 surveys to identify community concerns. Based on the results of the focus 

groups and other input, the planning committee determined that project work could most effectively be accomplished through subcommittees. The planning committee identified four subcommittees, called “Environmental 

Issue Teams” to collect the data and prepare a report to the full SD2EC membership. The four teams approved by 

consensus are air quality, solid waste, land use, and healthy homes. 

Implementing Solutions and Reducing Risks 

Identifying Problems and Solutions (Cont’d)
EPA Managers See Leaders in Action on Site Visits 

Page 4 U.S. EPA CARE Program: Quarterly Highlights—January 2008 

Senior management from the Office 

of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic 

Substances (OPPTS) visited several 

CARE grantees in 2007. Two Denverbased CARE grantees, Groundwork 

Denver, Inc. and West Denver Care, 

hosted Jim Jones, OPPTS Deputy 

Assistant Administrator, in November. 

“The Groundwork Denver project 

teams are very sophisticated and are 

doing a great job following the CARE 

model,” he reported, “and the West 

Denver team has a tremendous 

amount of enthusiasm and is well 

connected in the community.” In Savannah, Georgia, OPPTS Assistant 

Administrator Jim Gulliford attended a 

meeting with elected officials hosted 

by the Harambee House on November 13. Gulliford commended the project partners’ commitment to improving the communities’ environmental 

health, and noted that their ongoing 

engagement is what will make this 

work sustainable over time. 

(From left to right) Hudson Hill resident 

leads a neighborhood tour with EPA CARE 

Program Co-Chair Kent Benjamin and EPA 

Assistant Administrator Jim Gulliford. 

Tools and Resources for CARE Communities 

If minimizing pollution from local businesses is part of your CARE project, there are many low- or no-cost 

resources available to assist businesses in your community in becoming more efficient and environmentally sound: 

• Through the Department of Commerce’s Manufacturing Extension 

Partnership (MEP) program, companies can receive a variety of business 

and process efficiency services across the United States. 

• For more facility-specific issues, the Green Suppliers Network (GSN), program provides onsite technical assistance to small and medium-sized manufacturers to help them learn ways 

to increase efficiency, identify cost-saving opportunities, and optimize resources and technologies to eliminate 

waste. The result—more effective processes, higher profits, and 

fewer environmental impacts. Process reviews combining “lean 

manufacturing” and pollution prevention concepts are coordinated 

through local MEP centers and state pollution prevention programs. 

For more information about the Green Suppliers Network, visit www.greensuppliers.gov. 

 

Some CARE projects have already utilized assistance from GSN and MEPs. For example, the Rochester Green 

Suppliers Network collaborated with small stationary air toxic sources to identify opportunities for applying pollution 

prevention measures. Part of this effort included establishing the company's benchmark of emission then pollution 

prevention measures were implemented and compared against the benchmark for improvement. 

http://www.epa.gov/care