By Ellen H. King
September 27, 2004

The U.S. Conference of Mayors and DuPont announced $90,000 in awards last week to the winners of the USCM-DuPont Spotlight on Excellence Awards Competition #3. The USCM-DuPont Spotlight on Excellence Awards will award $500,000 throughout 2004, and were created to highlight outstanding strategies to make cities lead'safe.

Oklahoma City and Edmond (OK) received a $35,000 award for their joint proposal, Syracuse (NY) a $25,000 award and Burlington (VT) a $20,000 award. For the third competition in a series of six, cities were asked to submit proposals outlining lead-safety strategies to implement in their communities.

"As with Competition #1 and #2 of the Spotlight awards, we continue to be encouraged by the innovative lead-safety initiatives cities are creating to institute in their communities," noted Conference Executive Director Tom Cochran. "We are honored to provide a tool for cities to help them make a safer and more productive environment for their residents and look forward to the opportunity to assist cities even further in the competitions to come."

"By inviting cities to share their creative approaches to create a lead'safe environment for their residents, CUSP has accumulated a wide array of strategic lead-safety approaches," said DuPont Public Affairs Manager Mary Kate Campbell. "DuPont looks forward to continuing to serve as a resource to cities by launching future grant programs and providing a sounding board of winners through CUSP."

For the next round of the USCM-DuPont Spotlight on Excellence Awards two competitions will be combined to offer cities a total of $160,000 in lead-safety grant funds. Deadline for applications is Friday, October 22. Further Information on the grant program can be found on the USCM/DuPont Cities United for Science Progress (CUSP) official Web site at www.cusponline.org or at www.usmayors.org.

Summaries of the award winning proposals follow:

$35,000 First Place Award to Oklahoma City and Edmond (OK)

Oklahoma City and Edmond will partner to use grant funds to expand the successful outreach and education efforts of the Hispanic Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Project (HCLPP) to the entire Oklahoma City metropolitan area. The plan will focus on identifying and implementing successful primary prevention activities to low-income families and pregnant women through a three-pronged approach; education of the dangers of lead poisoning, an exchange program to replace items found in the community to contain lead with lead'safe items and the inspection of housing units to determine the types of lead exposure found in the Oklahoma City metropolitan area by a Certified Lead-Based Paint Inspector/Assessor.

$25,000 Second Place Award to Syracuse (NY)

With a rate of lead poisoning that is four times higher then the national prevalence rate, Syracuse plans to implement grant funds to finance a revolutionary project in the city called Five Sisters. The Five Sisters project is a public/private project created to revitalize five homes/10 units in a historic neighborhood to provide low-income families affordable and lead'safe housing. Grant funds will be used for the lead-safety remediation efforts of the units. The city plans to announce the completion of the project in the fall of 2005.

$20,000 Third Place Award to Burlington (VT)

Burlington will use grant funds to fund a full-time outreach nurse to conduct door-to-door lead screenings for all city children under the age of 6. To assist the many refugees in the Burlington community in understanding lead dangers, the city will also hire interpreters and will recruit Americorps VISTA workers to assist the outreach nurse in facilitating screenings and in making presentations at English language classes and community events. Additionally, the city will target new parents to provide them with lead-safety educational materials to increase preventative intervention efforts, education on proper house cleaning methods, information on medical resources available to them and the use of the cities' free HEPA vacuum.