LA28 is putting serious climate money on the street, rolling out $100,000 grants to eight Los Angeles nonprofits to take on wildfire risk, ocean health, and urban heat in the runup to the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The first round of neighborhood-scale projects ranges from turning a Boyle Heights basketball court into a shaded "cool court" to training a fuels-reduction crew that will work to cut wildfire risk in the Sepulveda Basin. LA28 says the goal is to deliver practical climate and community benefits in the same neighborhoods that will help host the Games.
According to LA28, the Resilience Champions Fund focuses on three priority areas: wildfire resilience and nature restoration, ocean protection, and cooling solutions. The fund is part of the broader LA28 Impact and Sustainability agenda. LA28 teamed up with Community Partners and an advisory panel of local experts to select the grantees, and each recipient is receiving $100,000 to get their project off the ground.
Who Got The Grants
The eight grantees are Active SGV in El Monte, Amigos de los Rios in Whittier Narrows, Chrysalis in the Sepulveda Basin, Climate Resolve in Boyle Heights, Conservation Corps of Long Beach, LA Community Garden Council, the Los Angeles Urban League, and the Santa Monica Mountains Fund. Their work centers on planting trees and micro-forests, converting gardens into resident-run cooling hubs, restoring coastal habitat, and building workforce pathways tied directly to climate resilience, as reported by Santa Monica Daily Press.
Jobs, Cooling, and On-The-Ground Work
Organizers stress that these are not meant to be quick one-off greening projects but long-term investments in local capacity. The fund specifically prioritizes workforce training. Chrysalis will train a fuels-reduction crew, and the Los Angeles Urban League will run green-construction training in fire-affected communities. Cooling projects such as Climate Resolve’s court in Boyle Heights are designed to pair heat mitigation with youth programming, according to Los Angeles Magazine.
Timing And Rollout
LA28 says the grant period begins immediately, with on-the-ground work expected to start this year and then scale up through the pre-Games period. Organizers say the plan is for this to be only the first of multiple grant rounds. The Resilience Champions emblem, a visual that ties together land, water, and the sun, will mark funded efforts across the region as the initiative rolls out, according to the organization.
"Resilience is built in communities and sustained through collective action," LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover said, a line that has been highlighted in local coverage of the grants. Community Partners and LA28 plan to continue the Resilience Champions program as part of broader pre-Games volunteer and legacy efforts, positioning the Olympics as a potential vehicle for targeted climate investments in neighborhoods across the region, as reported by Santa Monica Daily Press.
