The Finley's 'Green Leap Forward' Fund announces its third annual slate of grants totaling $30,000 to support environmental causes, tripling its previous budget. The Fund was established in 2014 by Elizabeth Finley Broaddus before she passed away from cancer to support efforts for a healthy, sustainable planet. This year's grants will support Catalog Choice, which helps reduce unwanted mail; Cool Earth, which protects rainforests; Cacapon Institute for tree planting education; and GreenBelt Movement for climate change education. Since starting, the Fund has granted over $50,000 to non-profits fighting climate change.

1. Media Contact: Lynn E. Broaddus
Lbroaddus@broadviewcollaborative.com
414-559-5495
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Fauquier Teen’s Fund Triples its Earth Day Grantmaking
Broad Run, Virginia, USA (22 April 2016) – In honor of Earth Day, Finley’s ‘Green Leap
Forward’ Fund announces its third annual slate of grants. The Fund was established in
2014 by Elizabeth Finley Broaddus, a senior at Highland School whose plans to attend
the College of William and Mary to study environmental policy were interrupted by the
news that she had cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and challenging form of cancer. Though
Finley’s fight with cancer ended five months later on June 2, 2014 her impact on
environmental causes continues to grow.
As she battled the incurable disease, Ms. Broaddus set up Finley’s ‘Green Leap
Forward’ on February 26, 2014 to“support local and global efforts that have a positive
impact on the environment, moving us forward towards a healthy, sustainable planet.”
For her 18th birthday on March 12, 2014 friends and family members set out to raise at
least $18,000 for the fund. Since that time, with the support of the Fauquier
community, as well as friends and family, the fund has grown and matured into a
permanent charitable fund which will be able to make annual grants in keeping with
Finley’s vision.
This spring, the fund’s third granting cycle, Finley’s Green Leap Forward Fund is
growing its grant making to incorporate new grantees while continuing to support the
organizations that Finley personally selected. We are happy to announce that the Fund
is tripling its 2016 grant budget to $30,000. This year’s grant recipients are:
 Catalog Choice, which for the last eight years has been helping people reduce
unwanted mail. Finley had a personal connection to Catalog Choice, launching
her own personal campaign to help her friends and their families reduce their
carbon footprint through reduced junk mail. Catalog Choice has recently been
taken on as a project of the non-profit organization Story of Stuff, which is using
Finley’s story to motivate others to join and support Catalog Choice. Finley’s
Fund will match all donations received by Catalog Choice in the coming weeks up
to $10,000. The funds will help them relaunch their website in a simplified,
elder-friendly format.
 Cool Earth, an organization focused on stemming climate change by helping
indigenous populations live sustainably within the rainforest through

2. improvement to health, education, and livelihoods. Todate they have saved
almost 650,000 acres of at-risk forest and protected over 154 million trees from
being felled by illegal loggers. Cool Earth works with villages from Peru to the
Democratic Republic of Congo and Papua New Guinea. Finley’s Fund is providing
a 2016 grant of $10,000 to Cool Earth.
 Cacapon Institute, of Great Cacapon, WV, was one of Finley’s original grant
recipients and will receive a grant of $5,000 for its West Virginia Project
CommuniTree program which promotes tree planting and education on public
land through volunteerism in the Potomac Headwaters of West Virginia.
 GreenBelt Movement, which works to stem Climate Change through reforestation
and by strengthening the understanding and capacity of rural communities to
take action against climate change, will also receive a third year of funding of
$5,000.
Since its inception Finley’s Green Leap Forward Fund has provided $50,000 in grants
to nonprofit organizations fighting climate change. In addition, through its website and
Facebook postings, the fund encourages and promotes personal action to reduce climate
change and promote resource sustainability.
# # #
Finley’s ‘Green Leap Forward’ Fund was created in 2014 by Ms. Elizabeth Finley
Broaddus to support environmental protection and restoration, and is managed by the
Northern Piedmont Community Foundation, Culpepper VA. More information on the
fund and its activities may be found at: http://www.finleysgreenleapforward.org/ and
https://www.facebook.com/FinleysGreenLeapForward. Donations to the fund may be
made through the donation tab found at www.NPCF.org with designation for “Finley’s
Fund”.