Schools and libraries in the towns of Bridgton, Casco, Denmark, Harrison, Naples, Sebago and Raymond have the opportunity to receive small grants from Loon Echo Land Trust for environmental education programs.

Applications are to be downloaded from Loon Echo’s Web site at www.LELT.org and returned by the deadline on Jan. 15, 2008.

Funds for these grants are made available through Helen Allen and Polly Bartlett Endowment.

Helen Allen granted Loon Echo a conservation easement to forever protect her hilltop farm on Quaker Ridge in Casco. After her death at the age of 94, Allen’s bequest to Loon Echo also allowed the land trust to create an environmental education fund to support yearly programs in local schools and libraries.

Polly Bartlett was one of the original board members of Loon Echo. A teacher at Sebago Elementary School, she treated her third graders to a winter walk at Maine Audubon each year. When she died in 2000 at the age of 48, Loon Echo created a fund in her memory to ensure that third graders at Sebago Elementary would always take their winter walk. Since 1998, hundreds of children have benefited from programs such as learning about bats and bugs, establishing an outdoor classroom, and studying soils and water quality.

Loon Echo Land Trust located in Bridgton is a nonprofit organization that aims to conserve and protect land for future generations.