DEARBORN – The Ford Motor Co. Fund has awarded $225,000 in grants to nine colleges, including four from Michigan, to support building sustainable communities.
The Ford College Community Challenge is a national challenge grant competition that recognizes colleges and universities that utilize a school?s resources to address an urgent community need related to the grant?s theme, ?Building Sustainable Communities.? Ford C3 also requires colleges to create proposals that have significant student input, involvement and leadership from beginning to end.
?The Ford College Community Challenge is designed to leverage the talents and creativity of students to drive meaningful change in their communities,? said Mike Schmidt, director of education programs at the Ford Motor Company Fund. ?We applaud these universities and colleges that are making student-led, community engagement a priority.?
Winners include Wayne State University, for its SEED Wayne projects that expand urban farming, nutrition education and fresh produce sales to underserved populations.
The College for Creative Studies in Detroit, to support student design and pilots of creative and easily replicable solutions for common challenges associated with urban farming in Detroit.
Michigan State University for students in the College of Engineering to develop and test a teaching module, software libraries and cloud support to enable high school students in the Lansing area to create Java programs that gather information about local energy usage.
The University of Michigan for designing and installing a net-zero water consumption system for the nation?s oldest net-zero house, a demonstration project in Ann Arbor.
