5th Annual PPBEP Community Grant Symposium

The Pensacola & Perdido Bays Estuary Program's Community Grant Program funds projects that serve to restore, preserve, connect, inform, and educate. The Estuary Program’s vision is to create a healthy and sustainable environment, economy, and community through these action projects.

The funding opportunity includes eligible project categories that support the Estuary Program’s core vision: water quality, sedimentation, habitat restoration, fish and wildlife conservation, watershed awareness and education, resilience, and participatory science.

Grant recipients will share their work and research findings with the community at the symposium. Presentation topics include diamondback terrapin participatory science efforts, a native plant garden highlighting culture and ecology, a study of fish communities in tidal creeks in the Santa Rosa Sound, and much, much more! The 2025-2026 Community Grant recipients will also be announced as part of the Estuary Program’s celebration of National Estuaries Week (September 21st-28th).

Please join us to learn more about local efforts that are underway to protect our waters!

Light hors d'oeuvres will be served!

The presentation line-up will include:

• A Comparison of Fish and Decapod Communities in Natural vs. Impacted Tidal Creeks of Santa Rosa Sound | Northwest Florida State College

• A Walk in the Watershed | Pensacola MESS Hall

• The Panhandle Terrapin Project: Education and Monitoring of Diamondback Terrapins | Escambia County

• Evaluating the Effectiveness of Living Shorelines for Fisheries Habitat in Pensacola Bay, Florida | University of South Alabama

• Coastal Rivers as Unrecognized Winter Fish Habitat: Quantifying Oligohaline Habitat Use in Pensacola and Perdido Bays | University of South Alabama

• Heritage Roots: A Native Plant Garden Celebrating Culture and Ecology in Northwest Florida | University of West Florida