Are you ready to improve your community?

BRACE GRANT PROGRAM

At the Keep Georgia Beautiful Foundation (KGBF), we believe everyone deserves to enjoy clean, green, and beautiful spaces. Litter affects our quality of life, destroying our state’s natural beauty, harming or killing wildlife, and diminishing water quality. It also hinders economic development—property values decrease in littered neighborhoods, whereas clean environments attract families and businesses.

That’s why we’re excited to provide a grant opportunity that will enable more communities to thrive. The purpose of the BRACE Grant Program is to reduce litter, blight, and illegal dumping on public property and encourage code enforcement efforts. Funded through the Solid Waste Trust Fund (SWTF), the grant program is designed to provide assistance to Georgia communities to address these challenges.

The 2024-25 application period is now closed, but we invite local governments, public authorities, agencies, commissions, or institutions to apply next year. Priority will be given to communities with a population of 2,500 or less according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau Population and Housing Unit Estimates data.

Examples from Previous Recipients

  • Keep Warner-Robins Beautiful

    The people of Warner Robins care deeply about keeping their community clean, but the closest landfill is located twenty miles from City Hall. The nearest paint recycler operates out of Atlanta, over 100 miles away, and unfortunately, this often results in illegal dumping. To combat these challenges, Keep Warner Robins Beautiful partnered with city officials and other local organizations in 2023 to host a series of free drop-off events for hard-to-recycle items. Residents were able to drop off paint for the first time ever, amassing 7,293 pounds in just two and a half hours. They also brought in 4,000 pounds of electronics, 4,050 pounds of large household items like mattresses and appliances, and 1,943 pounds of paper to be shredded. Overall, Keep Warner Robins Beautiful collected 4,050 pounds of litter and debris and recycled 13,236 pounds of materials. The following Monday, they received a number of calls from residents asking when more drop-off events would be available. The community has not only embraced these resources, but eagerly awaits similar opportunities.

  • City of Sylvester

    Sylvester is a small, rural town with limited funds, but its residents have shown time and again that improving their environment is a priority. In 2023, a BRACE grant enabled them to reinstate a popular community cleanup day that had faltered during pandemic years. 50 volunteers came together to remove 10,960 pounds of litter and debris from 12 public spaces, including dumpsters placed in four council districts for three days to collect tires, electronics, and larger household items from residents. Sylvester's code enforcement department also hosted a career day for approximately 800 high school students, 50 of whom went on to work for the city over the summer. Nearly half of these students participated in weekly street cleanups with the public works department as part of their curriculum, and all of them walked away with a clear understanding of what it will take to keep their community litter-free in the future. This series of events not only made Sylvester cleaner, greener, and more beautiful–it educated local youth and empowered them to become changemakers.

  • Warren County

    The cities of Warrenton, Norwood, and Camak have one thing in common: a desire to maintain clean neighborhoods, preserve natural ecosystems, and sustain the safety, health, and economic vitality of their communities. Litter and illegal dumping can severely hamper these efforts, so their board of commissioners put together a multifaceted approach to combat the issue. With the aid of a BRACE grant, they hosted a number of cleanups and a countywide amnesty event in 2024. Sites at four locations with roll-off containers and specialized recycling vendors allowed residents to drop off bulky items free of charge. Officials also designed and distributed educational brochures. In the end, they collected over 49,164 pounds of trash and debris and recycled 125 pounds of shredded paper, 452 tires, and 438 pounds of additional items, including computers and other electronics. By mobilizing their residents and investing in equipment for sustained cleanup initiatives, Warren County has taken a crucial step toward making their area of Georgia cleaner and greener.

  • City of Oglethorpe

    The city of Oglethorpe is a rural community that sits on the banks of the Flint River in middle Georgia. Its residents take pride in protecting this freshwater ecosystem, and in the spring of 2024, BRACE funding enabled them to take a multi-pronged approach to tackling litter and debris. Local churches, youth groups, garden clubs, and civic groups came together with the Downtown Development Authority to clean the downtown area and assist seniors with their yards. The city purchased roll-off dumpsters to place at several locations to collect bulky items, as well as a camera system, signage, and privacy screen fencing for their permanent drop-off location. These installments will help law enforcement combat illegal dumping for years to come. City officials, including the mayor, even visited the local elementary school to educate students on the issue, launching a coloring contest and inspiring a new generation of environmental stewards. Overall, 50 volunteers collected 120,000 pounds of trash and 3,000 pounds of large household items during this series of events.

Impact by the numbers

Over the past two years, we’ve provided $200,000 in funding for a total of 44 grants. This has enabled recipients across Georgia to collect 1,464,010 pounds of litter and recycle 100,199 pounds of materials. They’ve gathered 9,234 pounds of household hazardous waste; 1,503,017 pounds of large household items; and over 51 tons of tires.

Application Resources

We invite you to review the following documents as you prepare your submission.

BRACE Grant Program 2024-25 Guidelines (PDF)

BRACE Grant Program 2024-25 Application Questions for Review (PDF) 

BRACE Program Tips & Best Practices (PDF)

Project Budget Example (PDF)

You can also review BRACE Grant eligibility and application requirements via a recorded virtual session.

 FAQs

  • You may not include gifts, giveaways, prizes, awards, award ceremonies, recognition events, food and beverage, or salaries for employees that are not directly responsible for addressing the issues of litter, illegal dumping, blight, and/or code enforcement in your budget.

  • If your project includes recycling or beautification initiatives, those elements must tie directly to addressing the larger issues of litter, illegal dumping, blight, and/or code enforcement in your community.

  • BRACE grants are only available in $2,500 or $5,000 increments. The amount you request in your budget proposal must match one of those amounts exactly. If your budget for BRACE is less than $5,000, then you will only be eligible to receive $2,500. If your budget for BRACE is less than $2,500, then you will not be eligible to receive any grant funding. Your overall budget, including in-kind or other funding sources, may exceed the granted amounts.

  • Yes, multiple communities can collaborate on a single project. If that is how you choose to proceed, please have a representative submit one joint application. That representative should submit the application on behalf of a single community, with the other communities involved listed as the joint applicants. Only joint applications may choose to apply for the $10,000 grant option.

  • We encourage you to include as much detail as possible to help the judging team best understand your community need(s) in relation to litter, illegal dumping, blight, and/or code enforcement. This includes but isn’t limited to statistics, timeline information, details on local challenges, and projected outcomes. In your budget narrative, please be very specific on how you plan to utilize funding, including a breakdown of each line item.

Many thanks go out to our partners at the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and the Environmental Protection Division for making this opportunity possible.