/24-7PressRelease/ - UNIVERSITY PARK, PA, March 22, 2008 - The Philadelphia School and Community IPM Partnership recently welcomed a new team member to help the group expand upon growing efforts to find community-based solutions to manage pests safely and effectively.
Milea Perry will be working with the Philadelphia School and Community Integrated Pest Management Partnership (PSCIP) as a Community Outreach Coordinator. IPM, or integrated pest management, is a common sense approach to managing pests that uses knowledge of pests' habits and needs to help residents implement pest prevention tactics for long-term control. Only pesticide products that are least-toxic and that pose the least risk of exposure to residents are used.
Previously, Perry was an AmeriCorps VISTA Program Coordinator for the National Nursing Centers Consortium's Lead Safe Babies Program and volunteered with Healthy Homes for Childcare Programs, Philadelphia Department of Public Health. She was also an intern in the New Orleans Mayor's Office of Environmental Affairs. Additionally, Perry has worked as a fundraiser for Clean Water Action in Pittsburgh. She is a graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana with a B.A. in Political Science with a concentration in Environmental Studies.
"I'm looking forward to working with Philadelphia residents at the Household Hazardous Waste (HHW) Health Fair Events that I am helping to coordinate," says Perry. "I know that each event will improve the environmental and personal health of each household. Families will be able to learn more about safer solutions to pest problems and home cleaning and let go of some potentially harmful practices. I am thankful for supportive co-workers and happy to be a member of the team."
The HHW Health Fair Events will be partially funded by US EPA's Community Action for a Renewed Environment (CARE) grant. This cooperative agreement provides opportunities for PSCIP to work closely with regional and national EPA agents.
The Philadelphia School and Community IPM Partnership, or PSCIP, was formed six years ago when the Pennsylvania Integrated Pest Management Program (PA IPM) began looking for community-based solutions to manage pests effectively and safely. Since then, PSCIP has applied over $800,000 in grant monies from multiple sources to provide kid-safe pest control education and outreach in Philadelphia. PSCIP members include community groups, schools and child development centers, tenant groups, environmental groups, health professionals, pest control professionals, university staff and city and state agencies.
For more information on PSCIP, including meeting minutes, partners in the initiative, and current and future activities, visit Web site http://www.pscip.org/. Or, you may contact Michelle Niedermeier at the Penn State Philadelphia Outreach Center, phone (215) 471-2200, ext. 109, or e-mail mxn14@psu.edu.
The Pennsylvania IPM program is a collaboration between the Pennsylvania State University and the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture aimed at promoting integrated pest management in both agricultural and urban settings. For more information, contact the program at (814) 865-2839, or Web site http://www.paipm.org. To view our archived news releases, see Web site http://paipm.cas.psu.edu/10.htm.
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