Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization

With funding from the Health Impact Project, a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts, NCHH awarded 15 $5,000 Lead Poisoning Awareness Community Mini-Grants in 2017. These grants were for community events focused on raising awareness, engaging community leaders in advocacy, or motivating policy change around lead poisoning prevention.

Due to the replacement of water mains in the city of Chicago and the city’s lack of warning people to the dangers, PERRO has been handing out water filters and educating people on the dangers of lead in their water. PERRO partnered with JustDesign and received discounts and donations from the Pur and ZeroWater filter companies.

As a mini-grantee, PERRO held two events distributing in total 300 water filter packages; each including a new water filter carafe or faucet, along with a year’s supply of replacement filters, totaling $80 retail each. These events were quite successful with the group running out of filter packages.

PERRO has also partnered with the University of Illinois at Chicago on their efforts to engage the neighborhood on citizen science and engaged with the head of the church where the events took place. PERRO also presented to the EPA Region 5 office on lead in the water.

Going forward, PERRO has continued to hold regular group meetings and meeting with community leaders, training new members and volunteers as a result of these events.