Lilly Endowment gives grant for green spaces

Indianapolis residents can expect to see an increase in the number of green spaces speckled throughout the city.\nLilly Endowment announced Wednesday it would grant Keep Indianapolis Beautiful $300,000 this year -- double the company's normal donatation to the organization.\nKeep Indianapolis Beautiful is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the beautification of Indianapolis. Its activities include picking up litter, planting trees and painting and repairing houses, according to the Web site at www.kab.org.\nLilly Endowment is a private foundation that grants money to Hoosier organizations that focus on community development, religion and education. It receives its money through Eli Lilly stocks.\nThe grant is KIB's largest donation in its 25-year history and one of the largest grants received by any of the 500 Keep America Beautiful affiliate cities, said Teresa Rhodes, KIB director of development. \n"The grant will greatly impact Keep Indianapolis Beautiful because it will allow us to expand and evolve. I think the gift demonstrates competence in our programs," Rhodes said. \nLilly Endowment awards its grants based upon the merits of KIB's annual proposal. KIB has been a Lilly Endowment grantee for 15 years. This year, KIB's community record and ambitious future city project plans enabled the organization to receive more money, said Gretchen Wolfram, Lilly Endowment communications director. \n"The extra money will allow us to expand our programs further and touch more areas of the city that we normally would not have been able to," said Jamie Huckelberry, KIB public relations director.\nThe grant KIB receives will support its overall programs, a landscape maintenance business and "Project 180 Degrees IPL (Indianapolis Power & Light) Revive a Neighborhood." The latter is a five-year-old program in which KIB enters deteriorated neighborhoods and works to improve the houses, Rhodes said. \nKIB, which has more than 22,000 volunteers each year, receives donations from hundreds of companies and businesses. It works with other Indiana nonprofit agencies to make aesthetic and environmental improvements in the area.\nLast year, KIB volunteers constructed 34 community gardens, planted more than 1,000 trees and picked up more than 3 million pounds of litter, Huckelberry said.