To date CARE has provided grants that have funded more than sixty projects throughout Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket.
We have divided the projects on this page by region so that you can easily locate them as you explore. Click on the regions in the map and it will take you to that section, or scroll down below to view all of them.
We hope that you enjoy visiting the various sites. Each one offers a different way to learn how to help protect our environmental assets and/or local history and culture. When you visit, please tell the sites that you learned about them through CARE.
Funded Project Organizations
Upper Cape
“Drink Wash Repeat” Reusable Cup Pilot at Mashpee Farmers Market
Started in May of 2024, the Mashpee Market, Mashpee Chamber of Commerce, Naukabout Brewery, and Lemonadio hosted its first farmers/makers market to attract both visitors and locals to Mashpee to purchase goods, enjoy entertainment, and learn about environmental...
Heritage Museums and Gardens Water Refill Station
In keeping with their commitment to sustainability, a new water refill station was recently installed at Heritage Museums and Gardens in Sandwich near the Special Exhibitions Gallery. It was funded in part through a 2022 CARE grant.
Garden Activity Carts-Heritage Museums & Gardens
Activity carts provide a mobile educational platform in combination with a trained interpreter whose role is to engage with curious visitors. Interpreters are individuals trained in the use of inquiry-based discussion and hands-on techniques to connect visitors to...
Bioswale Interpretive Panel-Heritage Museums & Gardens
A new interpretive panel is being installed in the parking garden to greet visitors as they arrive. These signs provide an educational opportunity to share the bioswales’ function as integrated systems that work to trap and clean water runoff from the parking lot. A...
Falmouth Bikeways Signage & Safety
In an effort to improve safety for all on Falmouth's Bikeways, CARE provided a grant for new signage. In addition to addressing safety concerns these signs include tips on etiquette. They replace existing signage that are now combined into one that are more eye...
Falmouth Bikeway Guide
This useful guide is available along the Shining Sea Bikeway and Falmouth Visitor Center. It offers a map of the route, points of interest along the way, bike etiquette, safety tips and...
Falmouth Water Quality Shellfish Project
The Town of Falmouth is committed to cleaning up the nitrogen from Little Pond, using a variety of decentralized methods such as oyster aquaculture, in addition to sewering the Little Pond lower watershed. The Shellfish Aquaculture Demonstration Project...
Falmouth Farmers Market: Food Scrap Collection & Education
This project is a partnership between the Falmouth Farmers Market and Compost With Me. Compost with Me staff will collect food scraps from market-goers at each weekly market during the regular season. The set-up consists of one 10’x10’ market tent, signage, display...
Waquoit Bay Reserve partners with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe
For this project, the Waquoit Bay Reserve partnered with the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, a federally recognized tribe with ancestral homelands located both within and adjacent to the Reserve. The project improved and enhanced an existing outdoor wetu exhibit at the...
Mid Cape
JFK Hyannis Legacy Trail
John F Kennedy and the Kennedy family played a significant role in shaping the history of Barnstable, Cape Cod, and our nation. To honor the Kennedy legacy, in 2012 the Town of Barnstable created the Kennedy Legacy Trail, comprised of 10 signs located at significant...
Preserving History: Yarmouth New Church Historic Sign and Self-Guided Tour Panels
Over the past few years, a set of Self-Guided Tour Panels have been developed by a team of Yarmouth New Church Board members and local historians. It was a dream and vision of the Board to finalize the design of the panels and display them throughout the interior of...
Outdoor Play Oasis Story Sign
On October 15th Cape Cod Toy Library, Inc. celebrated the “Outdoor Play Oasis” Grand Opening event for which its “Story Sign”, supported by CARE for Cape & Islands was and is prominently located as people enter the outdoor play space.The ribbon cutting was...
Landscapes of Change-Cape Cod Collaborative Art Network
Landscapes of Change is a collaborative public art installation highlighting the ever changing landscapes in which we live, on both land and sea, and the effects of humans on our environment. This project will be multifaceted and will incorporate environmental...
Cape Cod Wildlife Collaborative Wildlife Festival
The Wildlife Festival is held annually on a Saturday in September at MA Audubon Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary. It's a fun family event that provides education around Cape wildlife and the organizations that work to protect it. CARE provided a grant to help fund a...
Interpretive Food Forest Exhibit
This project at MA Audubon Long Pasture Wildlife Sanctuary was completed and a "ribbon" cutting was held as part of CARE for the Cape & Islands Day, May 10th. Located in historic Cummaquid Village of Barnstable, this project will directly affect visitors’...
Victura
Cape Cod Collaborative Arts Network (CapeCodCAN), an organization providing inclusive programs in the performing and visual arts for teens and adults of all abilities, unveiled an original public art installation at the Barnstable Municipal Airport on Tuesday,...
Cape Cod Folk: the Story of Ralph and Martha Cahoon
The display is composed of eight educational elements that offer a fun, self-guided tour throughout the building's historic rooms and highlight some of its unique features, including how the Cahoons lovingly adapted it for their use as a gallery, home, and studio. The...
Bass River (Yarmouth) Village Walking Map
Once the home of the Pawkannawkut Indians of South Yarmouth, part of the Wamponoag Indian Federation, the Bass River Village contains more than 50 structures built before 1900 centered around the Bass River Historic District. Stroll down Old Main Street to admire...
Design Your Day on Cape Cod: Maritime Meanderings
Looking for new ideas of things to explore on Cape Cod? The Cape Cod Chamber, aided by a CARE grant has developed a series of useful guides to allow you to discover landmarks and local history. The first guide in a planned series, is centered around maritime history...
Lower Cape
Water Refill Station -moved to PBCB from Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge
Originally awarded to and installed at The Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge, located in the town of Chatham MA. The 40 acre parcel located on Morris Island hosted over 40 thousand visitors annually. Installed during the COVID pandemic the refill station sat idle for...
Bite-size marine debris
The marine debris artist Cindy Pease Roe, d/b/a UpSculpt, was commissioned by the Cape Cod National Seashore to construct a life-size sculpture of a white shark from debris items collected by the Center for Coastal Studies on beach cleanups conducted in the Seashore....
No Refuge: Cape Cod’s Coastal Crisis
Cape Cod has an erosion problem.The Atlantic Ocean is ravenously gnawing at the shoreline bluff of Morris Island in Chatham, Massachusetts, home to the headquarters of Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge. On the Cape’s southernmost point, erosion has taken between 30 and...
New Permeable Reactive Barrier Wayfinding Sign Installed at Salt Pond Visitor Center
The Cape Cod National Seashore recently installed a new wayfinding sign at the CCNS Salt Pond Visitor Center. Funding for the signage was provided through a grant from CARE in partnership with EPRTA (Eastham Part-time Resident Taxpayers Association). This new...
Kate Gould Park Water Bottle Filling Station
A water bottle filling station was installed at the Kate Gould Park, located on Main Street in Chatham. The park is frequented by visitors and residents who take in band concerts and the annual "Art in the Park" event.
Water Bottle Filling Station – Cape Cod Museum of Natural History
This grant has funded the installation of an Elkay Next Generation Wall Mount Water Bottle Refilling Station The water bottle fill station enhances sustainability by minimizing dependency on disposable plastic bottles. It is a complete ADA compliant cooler and bottle...
Shark Center Environmental Stewardship Exhibit-Atlantic White Shark Conservancy
The Shark Center's new exhibit will help to expand on the conversation “What YOU can do to support shark and ocean conservation”. The exhibit will be an interactive display that asks visitors to reflect on their lifestyle and consider what changes they can make to...
Coast Guard Beach Water Filling Station
An exterior water bottle filling station located at Cape Cod National Seashore in Eastham to help reduce single use plastic. Please bring your own reusable bottle and fill up!
Chatham Water Bottle Filling Station
Located at one of the busiest locations in Chatham, the water fountain and filling station will provide a means to reduce single use plastic bottles. The fish pier is a busy port for local fishermen offering a spectacular view of the harbor from the newly...
Atlantic White Shark Conservancy
The Chatham Shark Center is an education center for children and adults of all ages. Our exhibits are designed to educate people about the ecology of the white shark and other local marine life, the research being done on the white shark here on Cape Cod, the public...
Outer Cape
AWSC Shark Center Provincetown
AWSC’s second Shark Center is located on the historic MacMillan Wharf in Provincetown. The new Shark Center offers visitors an in-depth look at great white sharks through interactive exhibits, videos and displays, as well as provide insight into groundbreaking local...
Mayflower Compact Exhibit – Pilgrim Heights, CC National Seashore
This project supports public understanding of the multiple dimensions of the Mayflower landing in 1620 through an outdoor exhibit at Pilgrim Heights, Truro. The exhibit features the voyage of the Mayflower in November of 1620, the "discovery" expeditions the Pilgrims...
SEA Space Marine Discovery Center
Experience the natural wonders of Cape Cod under the expert guidance of our dedicated educators at SEA SPACE Marine Discovery Center. Located at Whaler's Wharf, 237 Commercial Street Provincetown. For more information.
Marconi Beach Water Filling Stations
In a continued effort to keep our beaches and waterways free from plastic pollution, we were happy to partner with the Friends of Cape Cod National Seashore to fund this water bottle refill station at Marconi Beach.
Cape Cod Whale Trail – Interpretive Signage
The Center for Coastal Studies which has been studying whales and their habitats on Cape Cod for nearly four decades is supporting the creation of a mini whale trail on Cape Cod similar to one out West. The Center routinely leads education walks during the spring...
ReFill Wellfleet Water Station
An exterior water filling station at Mayo Beach Recreation Center located across from Wellfleet Harbor was funded and recently installed through our 2018 grant program. Eliminating single-use plastic bottles through this filling station is part of Wellfleet's Zero...
Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket
Codfish Park Walking Tour
Nantucket Preservation Trust created a walking tour and accompanying attractive take-home brochure highlighting Codfish Park, a neighborhood located in Nantucket’s easternmost village of ’Sconset. Codfish Park has historically been home to a diversity of residents of...
Giving Voice: The Naming Trail – African American Heritage Trail of Martha’s Vineyard
Using archival research to identify the names given to people enslaved on Martha's Vineyard and students/community members as research assistants, artists and writers a memorial trail will be created. A rock will be used to identify each person, and as the original...
Martha’s Vineyard Deaf Heritage Tour
Martha's Vineyard is known as the birthplace of American Sign Language, and in fact for approximately 150 years, the Island was know as "the place that spoke by hand' according to Nora Ellen Groce, author of Everyone Here Spoke By Hand; Hereditary Deafness of Martha's...
Linda Loring Nature Foundation-Interpretive Signage
The Linda Loring Nature Foundation (LLNF) is dedicated to preserving and protecting Nantucket’s biologically diverse ecosystems. The Foundation’s property, a living laboratory for research and education, advances broad community support for environmental understanding...
Island Grown Initiative-5 Year Anniversary Grant
Island Grown Initiative, recipient of our 5 Year Anniversary Grant, developed waste stations for the Agricultural Fair, held August 16-19, 2018. A record 40,000 people attended. The waste stations allowed for separation of food, recycling and waste. These waste...
The Environment Gets the Short Straw: Say “No to Plastic Straws” Campaign
The environment draws the short straw when it comes to plastic waste on beaches. The focus of this grant is to provide information to the local restaurants and the public on the impact of single use plastic, particularly plastic straws.This is part of a larger Cape...
Beach Trash to Treasure on Nantucket
Maria Mitchell Association offered a two-week artist in residence program combining art, up-cycling, education, and conservation led by Cindy Pease Roe. Nantucket, as an island community, values its ocean resources tremendously as a continued source of food and...