Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant (IISG) established its Lawn to Lake program in 2010 through a four-year Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant, with the goal of protecting water quality in the Great Lakes region by promoting sustainable lawn and landscaping practices. During the grant period, IISG created natural lawn care outreach publications geared towards homeowners and facilitated training workshops for landscapers, Master Gardeners, and teachers.
Over the past two years, efforts have been focused on revamping Lawn to Lake outreach materials. Sea Grant has updated the program branding, creating a new logo and stylized templates for outreach publications and social media.
In 2018, University of Illinois Extension awarded IISG an Interdisciplinary Collaboration Extension grant to work with the Department of Agricultural Communications in the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences to address lawn care-related pollution in watersheds. The team is conducting a statewide survey and holding focus group discussions to develop, pilot, and assess a targeted natural-lawn-care communication campaign for homeowners (iiseagrant.org/ work/healthy-waters/programs-initiatives/natural-lawn-care).
