The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation has given $500,000 in funding for projects and programs on the parkway.

The projects for 2011 include:

• Continued funding of the Parks As Classrooms initiative for next school year: Parks as Classrooms is the Blue Ridge Parkway’s outreach program to children, instilling values of parkway protection to students in all 29 Virginia and North Carolina counties that border the parkway.

• Relocation of the park communications center: A 1,200 square foot communications center will be constructed at the Blue Ridge Parkway Headquarters in Asheville that will house the parkway’s interagency dispatch operation.

• The “Roots of American Music Program:” Funding for a series of concerts at the Blue Ridge Music Center on the parkway in Virginia.