Grant work for Two Rivers Lake

Friends of Two Rivers Lake utilizes opportunities to apply for grants which will help with our mission to protect and preserve the integrity of Two Rivers Lake.  Our members volunteer their time to apply for these grants and we also welcome anyone with grant writing experience to volunteer as well.

A couple examples of our grant uses:

We began a boat inspection program on Two Rivers Lake in 2016. The majority of the costs of this program have been covered by grants received from Stearns County. The grant program is administered by the Stearns County Aquatic Invasive Species (AIS) Committee which seeks to prevent the spread of AIS in lakes within Stearns County. The lake association has received over $65,000 in grant money to support the boat inspection program since its inception.

We also received a $2,900 grant in 2017 to conduct a vegetation survey of the lake to determine what was growing in the lake and where it was located. This led to the discovery of curlyleaf pondweed almost all around the lake.

Since that discovery, the lake association began a curlyleaf management program that includes an annual survey and herbicide treatment of the lake. Although curlyleaf pondweed is an aquatic invasive species, there currently are no grant monies available for its control, so the management program on Two Rivers Lake over the past three years has been totally financed by the lake association. The cost of this program has been approximately $5,000 per year.  This also ties into why our fundraisers and donations are so important.

Our lake association does not have an external funding source such as pull tabs or a Lake Improvement District (LID), or an endowment fund as some of the other lake associations in the area have to take the place of the grant monies.