Annually, MPF offers several grants to help fund the establishment or improvement of prairie gardens or plantings using Midwest native plants that are accessible to the public. This year’s five MPF Prairie Garden Grant recipients will use awarded grants to educate, inspire, and enliven their communities.
The River Market Garden Club, in Kansas City, Missouri, will collaborate with the Kansas City Community Improvement District to restore tree wells and other small urban plantings in the River Market area. Olivette Parks and Recreation in Olivette, Missouri, will invest in a savanna reconstruction project to convert a section of turfgrass lawn adjacent to a woodland trail into a diverse habitat. The Indigenous Stewardship Club at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, will restore campus garden beds with native plantings and reclaim indigenous presence and healing on their campus. The Randolph County Farm Bureau in Sparta, Illinois, will, in collaboration with the local FFA chapter, establish a demonstration garden highlighting the functionality of native plants and their benefits. The HeartLands Conservancy in Belleville, Illinois, will establish a planting of species native to the adjacent remnant Poag Sand Prairie to aid field identification of sand prairie species.
These projects were selected from more than 50 applications. We thank all applicants for their submissions. The 2026 funding cycle will open in fall 2025, with applications due in January. Review the grant guidelines here.
Photo from 2019 PGG awardee KC Farm School at Gibbs Road, by Alicia Ellingsworth
