Celebrating Success! The One Water Partnership Shines.

Interfaith Partners for the Chesapeake (IPC) is pleased to announce that we have successfully concluded a 3-year grant totaling $1,000,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) in support of the One Water Partnership (OWP) collaborative.

Why are we celebrating? Because WE achieved more together.

The activities over the past three years funded by this grant opportunity have mobilized 184 congregations in completing projects and programs that have educated their communities and resulted in meaningful local water quality improvement projects. The basic outcomes are astounding -- particularly considering that for much of the grant period the world was operating in a pandemic: 611 programs offered (either by IPC or our partners, or led by the congregations themselves), 81 newly trained Green Teams, and 46 separate Best Management Practices (BMPs) installed. The work also built the capacity of the collaborative to accelerate water quality outcomes and laid a foundation for further scale-up of faith-based restoration action.

Photo: Green Team members from Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church gather for a neighborhood trash clean-up event.

Collectively, these BMP’s will now annually treat and prevent more than 25,000 lbs of sediment and 420,000 gallons of stormwater from entering and polluting our local waterways. Most of this was achieved on faith-focused congregational properties or their surrounding communities. To support these implementation efforts, IPC and the OWP secured a total of $405,446 from non-federal sources to underwrite design or installation of projects at congregations. In total, we were able to collectively offset the pollutant load from 20.9 acres!

This work was only possible because you took a stand alongside us. In the last 3-years, the OWP has seen more than 2,000 volunteers mobilized, and together we reached more than 38,000 individuals! These actions are helping to carry our movement forward, bringing environmental teachings to new congregations and homes alike. We have definitely proven that when we come together as one community, focused on a shared goal, we can achieve immense success.

Photo: Green Team leaders from Baltimore gather for a special tour of the "Regenerative Stormwater Conveyance" at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Eastport, Annapolis MD.

By working together, the OWP has strived to unify and inspire values around clean water, healthy communities, resilient landscapes, healthy soils, and engaged citizenry, which in turn will accelerate critical conservation outcomes across the Chesapeake. With renewed grant funding from NFWF, the OWP will continue working with you, and so many others, to inspire stewardship and environmentalism across the Chesapeake Bay.

Additionally, through our latest OWP funding we will expand targeted hubs to include the entire Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland (including City of Salisbury and Wicomico, Worcester, Somerset, and parts of Dorchester County), and all of Greater Baltimore (including Harford, Howard and Anne Arundel Counties). With a unique collection of non-traditional partners, the One Water Partnership will strive to bring together the religious and secular, economists and advocates, purists and pragmatists, urbanites and farmers, government and citizens, because all people care about this one water we share.

Photo: Children play with a watershed-model, brought by the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay to Harford EcoFest, hosted at Churchville Presbyterian Church by the One Water Partnership. 

Want to learn more about our current 3-year grant initiative with the NFWF in support of the OWP? Read about it HERE. Join this work: learn more about the One Water Partnership, participate in upcoming events or trainings, or sign the pledge to be a Partner Congregation.