BRIDGTON — 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 website at www.LELT.org and returned by the deadline on Jan. 15.

Funds for the educational grants are made available through Loon Echo’s Educational Endowment, and since 1998 hundreds of children have benefited from programs that teach about the natural world. The endowment was developed as a memorial to two teachers, Helen Allen and Polly Bartlett. Allen granted Loon Echo a conservation easement to forever protect her beautiful hilltop farm on Quaker Ridge in Casco. After her death at the age of 94, Allen’s bequest to Loon Echo allowed the Trust to create a fund to support yearly programs in local schools and libraries.

Bartlett was one of the original board members of Loon Echo. Each year she treated her third grade students at Sebago Elementary School to a winter walk with Maine Audubon. When she died in 2000 at the age of 48, the Trust created a fund in her memory to ensure that third graders at Sebago Elementary would always take their winter walk.

Loon Echo Land Trust protects land in the northern Sebago Lake region of Maine to conserve its natural resources and character for future generations. Currently 3,400 acres of land is protected and six land preserves are available for public use. Loon Echo relies on the support and generosity of public and private contributions to conserve more land and to care for the lands already under protection.

Contact Loon Echo at 647-4352 or info@lelt.org with questions about the grant program or land protection efforts.