By Monte Sonnenburg, Simcoe Reformer
June 17 — The Long Point Causeway Improvement Project is in the running for a $100,000 grant from Shell Canada.
The project is one of 54 across the country that Shell Canada has short-listed for its $1 million FuellingChange program.
Under the program, Shell Canada leaves it to Canadians to decide which projects are worth the largest possible grant. All projects have qualified for at least a $10,000 payout.
Depending on the level of support they receive from the Canadian public, projects could qualify for grants of $25,000 or $50,000. The two projects with the highest number of votes will receive $100,000. Voting ends at noon, Oct. 31.
Shell Canada will award 10 votes to anyone who goes to its website and sets up a profile page. Shell customers are awarded additional votes on a coded receipt when they fill up at participating stations. It is up to customers to get into the habit of inputting this information at the appropriate website between now and the contest deadline.
“I’ve been buying all my gasoline at Shell stations since the contest began,” Rick Levick of Toronto, coordinator of the Long Point causeway project, said in an email.
The contest kicked off in early May.
As of Thursday, the Canadian Commuter Challenge in Calgary, Alta., was sitting at No. 1 with 4,584 votes. Sponsored by the Sustainable Alberta Challenge, the Canadian Commuter Challenge aims to get motorists to find alternative means of getting around other than their personal vehicle.
Sitting in second with 2,091 votes is a project in southwestern Alberta designed to reduce conflicts between ranchers and carnivores in the wild.
The Long Point causeway project sits in third with 1,566 votes. Project sponsors hope to install ecopassages under the causeway so endangered turtles, snakes and other animals can move between Long Point Bay and the Big Creek Marsh without being crushed on the highway. Sponsors of the project also hope to improve the exchange of water between the marsh and the bay.
For more information on how to participate, check out www.shell.ca/fuellingchange.