Through the Champions for the Environment program, Merck provides grants for environmentally focused and educational projects.  Successful projects have another key element:  Merck employee volunteers from around the world working alongside community volunteers to accomplish the projects.  Since inception, Merck employees have "championed" hundreds of projects — and volunteered thousands of hours on behalf of local non-profit partners, including schools, local government and environmental and youth organizations. Projects focus on a range of community-based environmental needs such as wildlife habitat preservation, stream cleanups and bank restoration, phytoremediation, energy conservation and climate change, and recycling and resource conservation.