Coca-Cola Foundation gifts $300,000 to railroad conservation project

ATLANTA The Coca-Cola Foundation this week announced that it would bestow a total of $300,000 in grant monies to Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a project working towards converting abandoned rail lines into hiking trails around Chicago, New Orleans, New York City, Los Angeles, New Orleans and Washington, D.C.

“Coca-Cola is committed to helping ensure the vitality of our communities,” chair of the Coca-Cola Foundation Ingrid Saunders Jones said in a statement. “This grant is an expression of our commitment to the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy’s goal of creating trails that place 90 percent of Americans within three miles of a safe and healthy community trail system.”

The grant is part of an ongoing commitment by Coke to RTC. Coca-Cola donated $500,000 to the RTC for work on trails in the United States in 2005. In its local community, some of the funds from Coca-Cola’s past gifts were used to construct Gateway Park at the Georgia/Atlanta stateline.