Environmental Justice Fund Opportunities at the Attorney General’s Office

2025 Environmental Justice Awards

•    Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) -- Boston, MA ($25,000)  
ACE will support and bolster its statewide community engagement efforts, including educational workshops on environmental justice and civil rights, community stakeholder and civic engagement, and public events such as the “Fair Lending, Fair Housing, and Environmental Justice as Civil Rights” forum.

•    Boston University: Cumulative Impact Assessment Methods to Identify High-Risk Communities -- Boston, MA ($25,000) 
The grant funding will be used to study the cumulative impacts of climate hazards, chemical exposures, and other stressors to identify high-risk communities and subpopulations. Boston University will collect and compile geospatial data on high-resolution exposure patterns in Massachusetts, apply multi-stressor epidemiology and cumulative impact assessment methods, and develop mapping tools and databases that identify the Commonwealth’s highest-risk communities

•    Devenscrest Tenant Association (DCTA): Affordable Housing Tenant Support -- Ayer, MA ($100,000) 
This funding will be used to support various projects at the Devenscrest Village Apartment Complex, including developing open space and playground(s), tenant/community housing advocacy training, and apartment mold and asbestos remediation and restoration.

•    Dream Network: Bridging Generations for Environmental Justice -- Lawrence, MA ($25,000) 
Bridging Generations for Environmental Justice is an 8-month community engagement initiative designed to build intergenerational dialogue and action around environmental justice. The Dream Network will work with senior and youth residents in public housing to gather data, identify community concerns, and reimagine possibilities for collective healing and sustainability tied to environmental, health, and economic justice.

•    Eastie Farm: Eastie Farm Regional Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) -- East Boston, MA ($25,000) 
Through the establishment of a regional CSA program, Eastie Farm plans to increase the access of fresh and affordable produce in East Boston, a federally recognized food desert. With this funding, Eastie Farm intends to connect two in-need groups by benefiting food insecure residents of East Boston with free and subsidized CSA shares and patronizing small, struggling farmers.

•    Greater Mattapan Neighborhood Council: Edgewater Drive Air Monitoring Project -- Mattapan, MA ($25,000) 
Funding will be used to place air quality monitoring devices on Edgewater Drive -- a ½-mile long road on one side of the Neponset River. It includes the Kennedy Playground, four autobody repair shops, a cement company, and residential housing. The last published Community Health Assessment Report 2022 states that Mattapan has the highest rate of asthma emergency department visits for Boston children under the age of 18.

•    Green Cambridge: Canopy Crew -- Cambridge, MA ($25,000) 
Canopy Crew connects youth with residents to plant a tree on private properties while training the next generation of environmental and civic leaders. Green Cambridge plans to use the funds to plant trees in environmental justice neighborhoods and urban heat islands throughout Cambridge. By working directly in affected environmental justice communities with the lowest canopy cover and the highest urban heat island effect, Canopy Crew is a catalyst for breaking down social silos in the city, making a long-term investment in our environment and the future of our youth.

•    GreenRoots: Cool Community in Hot EJ Neighborhoods -- Chelsea, MA ($25,000) 
With the goal of advancing climate justice in the frontline community of Chelsea, particularly along the Mill Creek waterfront, GreenRoots will use the funding to support community engagement in waterfront and ecological restoration efforts, the construction of a new permanent open space, and the development of a tree keeper stewardship program to increase Chelsea’s tree canopy.

•    Harvard School of Public Health: Multiple Hazards Exposure Estimation and Environmental Epidemiologic Analysis -- Cambridge, MA ($25,000) 
To improve hazard risks identification across the state, this project will leverage existing data resources as well as state-specific health data to understand which communities have highest exposure risks as well as health risks associated with climate and additional environmental risk factors.

•    Herring Pond Wampanoag Tribe: Dina Path Ecological Restoration and Cultural Preservation -- Plymouth, MA ($25,000) 
Dina Path is a sacred site within the Wampanoag Tribe’s ancestral territory in Plymouth and has long served as a connective corridor between land, water, and tribal memory. The Wampanoag Tribe proposes a holistic restoration of the site to address environmental degradation and revitalize its ecological and cultural integrity, establishing long-term protections rooted in tribal values.

•    Massachusetts EJ Table: Disadvantaged Community/Cumulative Impact Community Engagement -- Statewide ($100,000)  
The EJ Table will use this funding to guide strategies to prevent new infrastructure from overburdening already impacted environmental justice communities. EJ Table will partner with the AGO and other environmental justice organizations to facilitate conversations with residents and collect data about economic, health, and environmental burdens to help inform a cumulative impacts framework.

•    Neighbor to Neighbor (N2N): Healthy Homes, Healthy Communities -- Holyoke, Springfield, Worcester, MA ($50,000) 
Alongside data collection for a tenant survey and landlord report cards on environmental health hazards, N2N will provide education, leadership development, and civic engagement through workshops and trainings in Holyoke, Springfield, and Worcester. This funding will strengthen civic engagement in communities disproportionately impacted by housing injustice and environmental harm and build the knowledge and leadership needed for long-term change.