Champlain Area Trails received an Adirondack Garden Club 1928 AGC Founders Fund grant to restore safe access to damaged hiking trails in the Split Rock Wildway. Repairs included rebuilding footbridges, replacing planks and reinforcing stream crossings for improving hiker safety. (Provided photo — Champlain Area Trails)

KEENE–The Adirondack Garden Club is now accepting applications for two grant programs offered this year.

The Ellen Lea Paine Memorial Nature Fund, established in 2005, provides financial assistance to individuals and nonprofit organizations, including schools, whose programs support the study, protection and enjoyment of the natural environment within the Adirondack Park. Grant requests are reviewed and funds awarded by the Ellen Lea Paine Memorial Nature Fund Committee.

The Ellen Lea Paine Memorial Nature Fund application deadline is May 1, with funds distributed June 1.

Last year’s awardees of the Ellen Lea Paine Memorial Nature Fund were the Adirondack Land Trust, Ausable Freshwater Center, Boquet River Association, Creative Kitchen Gardens and Little Peaks Preschool & Early Childhood Center, for projects ranging from erosion work on an active trail, creating riparian buffers along waterways, creating native plants seed sources, and both launching and supporting gardening projects to grow food for kids and low-income families.

The 1928 AGC Founders Fund, established in the 1980s, provides grants to nonprofit organizations, including schools, whose programs support the Adirondack environment. The fund promotes knowledge and appreciation of gardening, protects native plants and birds, encourages civic planting and advances the conservation of natural resources.

The 1928 AGC Founders Fund application deadline is June 15 and funds will be distributed July 15.

Founders Fund grants were awarded in 2025 to the Adirondack Trail Improvement Society, North Country Community College, town of Waverly Museum, Champlain Area Trails, Pendragon Theatre, Westport/Wadhams Community Alliance, Flowers Plus! Committee and the Garden Club of America’s Scholarship Fund. Those projects included trail maintenance and repair projects, creation of landscaping and native pollinator gardens, including developing protection from deer, and funding students pursuing research in the fields of botany, conservation, landscape architecture and pollinators.

Both the Ellen Lea Paine Memorial Nature Fund and the 1928 AGC Founders Fund utilize the same grant application form, found by visiting adirondackgardenclub.com or emailing contact@adirondackgardenclub.com.