Governor Janet Mills announced today that her Administration has awarded a total of $2.5 million in grant funding to 75 communities across Maine to help them fight climate change.

The grants come from the Community Resilience Partnership, a program of the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future to help Maine communities with local climate action plans to become more resilient against climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Of the awards, 29 towns and cities will receive direct funding for local projects. Grants to 13 planning, economic development and community organizations across Maine will support an additional 46 towns and tribal governments in starting or advancing local and regional climate resilience plans in the months ahead.

“These investments in municipalities across Maine will advance clean energy and energy efficiency, reducing our overall reliance on fossil fuels and increasing the resilience of our communities against climate change and volatile global energy markets,” said Dan Burgess, Director of the Governor’s Energy Office. “These grants will help Maine communities unlock future benefits, reduce costs for taxpayers, and help protect our environment.”

The Maine communities and organizations receiving Community Resilience Partnership grants span all 16 counties and represent a broad cross-section of projects, which include creating community climate plans, protecting historic downtowns from rising sea levels, addressing public health risks from rising temperatures, and supporting clean energy investments like electric vehicle charging and solar power.

Examples of projects include: city leadership in Rockland planning to use its $50,000 grant award to further critical resilience investments in its downtown waterfront, including its public landing, recreational areas and working waterfronts.

“This grant will help the City of Rockland develop a more resilient design for the piers and seawall on Rockland’s downtown waterfront. These facilities are vulnerable to increasing storm surges, and the Community Resilience Partnership grant will help us develop the engineering detail needed to apply for federal funds to redevelop our marine infrastructure,” said Julie Hashem, Community Development Director for Rockland. “We couldn’t take on large projects like this without help from grants, and we are grateful to the Mills Administration for creating a program to help communities like ours address resilience needs.”

Other local grants allocated were $50,000 to Camden for SAD 28 electric school bus fleet purchase; $50,000 to Vinalhaven for its downtown stormwater management project design; $37,458 to the Island Institute; $17,850 to Resilient Communities L3C to serve North Haven and Islesboro; an unspecified amount to the Sunrise County Economic Council to serve Waldo, Hancock and Washington Counties; and an unspecified amount to a collaboration between SMPDC, GPCOG, LCRPC and Resilient Communities to serve York, Cumberland, Sagadahoc, Lincoln and Knox counties.

A second round of Community Resilience Partnership grants will be awarded later this year. The goal of the program is to enroll a minimum of 100 Maine communities within its first year, either individually or through regional coalitions developed by coordinators funded by the program.