Keep America Beautiful Receives $1 Million Grant from Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation

National Nonprofit to Support More than 100 Community Improvement Initiatives

STAMFORD, Conn., Jan. 30, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Keep America Beautiful (KAB) today announced a $1 million donation from the Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation (LCEF) to support the national nonprofit's mission to build and sustain vibrant communities. This is Lowe's second $1 million contribution to Keep America Beautiful to engage volunteers to take action to benefit local communities across the country.

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The Lowe's Community Partners grant will support more than 100 community improvement initiatives in 2013, ranging from creating community gardens and augmenting recycling programs to planting trees and leading disaster restoration projects.

The national nonprofit will directly solicit its affiliates for grant applications beginning in February.

"The cumulative impact of this Lowe's Community Improvement Grant Program continues to be remarkable. Our intent is to ensure that all selected projects help to create vibrant communities that are socially connected, environmentally healthy and economically sound," said Matt McKenna, president and chief executive officer of Keep America Beautiful. "Together with our strong national network of affiliates and partners, we will continue to work hand-in-hand with their local Lowe's Heroes and Lowe's store managers to make a real difference in communities across the country."

The grant encourages KAB affiliates to engage with their local Lowe's Heroes program, a company-wide volunteer initiative that offers Lowe's employees the opportunity to work on projects in their own community, thereby furthering KAB's mission of making communities cleaner, greener and safer places to live, work and play.

"Last year was our first year working with Keep America Beautiful, and we've learned a lot about our shared passion for making communities clean, green and safe," said Marshall Croom, chairman of the Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation. "The projects completed in 2012 by our Lowe's Heroes and Keep America Beautiful volunteers will have a lasting impact on communities across the country for years to come. We can't wait to roll up our sleeves and get to work with KAB in 2013."

Highlights of projects from the 2012 grant cycle included:

• Keep America Beautiful - Topeka Shawnee County used its Lowe's grant to "replant, re-paint, rebuild and renew Harveyville" after a tornado devastated this small Kansas community in 2011.
• In another restoration project, the City of Arlington, Texas, worked with Keep Arlington Beautiful and more than 500 volunteers to plant 1,000 trees at residential homes of struck by tornadoes.
• The Ft. Knox Military Families Community Garden was a project inspired by the Governor's Garden Initiative of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The Lowe's grant funded a one-acre vegetable and ornamental garden that was planted in the spring of 2012 to introduce military families to edible gardening, and environmental and nutritional education. 
• Keep Columbus (Ohio) Beautiful worked with 85 Lowe's Heroes and 600 additional volunteers to improve the storefronts of merchant properties on a two-mile stretch of a Columbus business district. And in Houston, more than 100 Lowe's Heroes joined Keep Houston Beautiful to create a butterfly-themed natural play area in the Alief Community Garden.

About Lowe's
Lowe's supports the communities it serves through programs that focus on K-12 public education and community improvement projects. The company's signature education grant program, Lowe's Toolbox for Education, has donated nearly $5 million in grants to K-12 public schools every year since its inception in 2006. Lowe's Heroes employee volunteers support local community projects and our national nonprofit partners such as Habitat for Humanity, Rebuilding Together and the American Red Cross. In 2012, Lowe's and the Lowe's Charitable and Educational Foundation together contributed more than $30 million to support communities in the United States, Canada and Mexico. To learn more, visit Lowes.com/SocialResponsibility.

About Keep America Beautiful
Keep America Beautiful is the nation's leading nonprofit that brings people together to build and sustain vibrant communities. With a strong national network of 1,200 affiliates and partners including state recycling organizations, we work with millions of volunteers who take action in their communities. Keep America Beautiful offers programs and engages in public-private partnerships that help create clean, beautiful public places, reduce waste and increase recycling while educating generations of environmental stewards. Through our actions, we help create communities that are socially connected, environmentally healthy and economically sound. For more information, visit kab.org.

SOURCE Keep America Beautiful