St. Patrick Center gets $550,000 grant for green jobs

St. Louis Business Journal
Jun 16, 2009

The U.S. Conference of Mayors has awarded a $550,000 grant to St. Patrick Center in St. Louis as part of a green jobs training program funded by the Wal-Mart Foundation.

The mayors, including St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, met in Providence, R.I. last week, and selected six non-profit organizations to receive the grants totaling $3.27 million to support and expand training programs in green jobs. St. Patrick Center’s Project GO! Green, in partnership with Gateway Greening and the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, is a two-part program:

• City Seeds Urban Farm trains the agency’s homeless clients in green horticulture, working with Gateway Greening in St. Louis. These clients are prepared for jobs in landscaping, nurseries, gardening retailers and other green-care jobs.

• The GO! Network trains 50 of the network’s professional members in biofuels production and related fields, working with the National Corn to Ethanol Research Center at SIUE. These professionals joined the GO! Network in early 2009 after losing their jobs due to the recession.