Sweetbriar Nature Center Receives Community Grant from The Home Depot

Smithtown, NY – December 1, 2008 – This October, Sweetbriar Nature Center in Smithtown, received a Community Grant from The Home Depot that included a check for $12,500, plus an agreement for in-kind services and another $17,500 in materials.

The Grant money is being used to update the deteriorating cages for the resident wildlife and improve the animal rehabilitation clinic. Projects are currently under way.

The initiative is part of Team Depot, a corporate-sponsored volunteer program that looks for ways to contribute within local communities through service.

Steve Bell, a Team Depot captain at Home Depot in Smithtown has been a frequent visitor of Sweetbriar for many years. When his store won the company wide ESP contest, he decided to allocate the funds to Sweetbriar. He was inspired to contact Marie and Wayne Smith, the nature center’s directors, and started the process of planning projects for the upcoming year.

About Sweetbriar Nature Center
This past year alone, Sweetbriar’s natural science education programs have educated over 60,000 children and adults about the importance of preserving the natural world and the simple steps needed to create wildlife-friendly communities.

The 54-acre nature preserve is open to visitors daily and program costs are kept low as funding comes from its members, corporate members, grants, donations and fund-raising events. Serving over one million Long Islanders since its inception in 1970, the Sweetbriar staff presents in-school classroom visitations, on site-programs to classes visiting Sweetbriar, scout programs, nature birthday parties for members’ children, and general public programs.

In addition to this, Sweetbriar staff and volunteers care for the resident un-releasable animals that are an integral part of their education programs. Trained and licensed rehabilitators are dedicated to caring for hundreds of injured or orphaned animals each year to ensure their successful release into the wild.

For information please contact:
Marie Smith
Sweetbriar Nature Center
Smithtown, NY 11788
Phone: 631-979-6344
E-mail:
http://www.sweetbriarnc.org