By Sidney A. Wolf
January 31, 2005

The 73rd Winter Meeting of the Conference of Mayors brought more than 250 mayors from across the country together to discuss the upcoming year in Congress and other relevant issues that will affect our nation's cities in the upcoming year.

During the meeting, Stacey Mobley, Senior Vice President, General Council and Chief Administrative Officer of DuPont, addressed the conference to officially announce the 2005 Cities United for Science progress (CUSP) Lead'safe...For Kid's Sake grant awards. Through its partnership with the Conference of Mayors, DuPont will award a total of $375,000 to the top three cities for the most innovative lead'safe practices. The first place winner will win a grant of $175,000 followed by two runners'up who will each receive $100,000. The deadline for applications is April 22, 2005.

The Lead'safe...For Kid's Sake grants are awarded to cities for their efforts in proposing and/or demonstrating excellence in implementing effective solutions to make their communities lead'safe. Since its inception in 2002, DuPont though CUSP has awarded Conference of Mayors member cities over $2.6 million in an effort to make America's cities lead'safe.

The 2005 award-winning cities will represent the very best and most innovative ideas that help make our communities lead'safe.

"We [at DuPont] believe that by committing substantial resources to your efforts and forging public-private partnerships, the goal of creating lead'safe communities can become a reality," said Mobley.

Mobley also spoke about CUSP's Science in the School Day program. Science in the School Day is a dynamic outreach program that teams DuPont engineers with mayors for visits to elementary schools to further students' discovery of science. The program enlightens children's minds to science and its powerful effects on the world. Science in the School Day provokes curiosity and fuels a child's inquisitive nature by demonstrating how much fun science can be while at the same time offering DuPont engineers as role models for our public school children.

"As 2005 begins, we look forward to the most successful year of CUSP ever and if we haven't been to your city we would be happy to work with you," said Mobley. To find out more about CUSP please visit the website www.cusponline.org or contact Sid Wolf at 202.466.7320 or swolf@usmayors.org.