USDA Awards $4.8 Million in Grants for Community Food Projects
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1, 2007 - Acting Agriculture Secretary Chuck Conner announced today that $4.8 million has been awarded as part of the USDA's Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service's (CSREES) Community Food Projects (CFP) program. The grants, given to 34 organizations in 20 states, will help low-income people meet their food needs.
"These grants offer exceptional opportunities to make food available so that disadvantaged communities can move toward self-sufficiency," Conner said.
The CFP program has been meeting the food needs of low-income people for the past 11 years while increasing the self-reliance of communities in providing for their own food, farm and nutrition issues and needs. The program administers three types of projects: community food projects, training and technical assistance projects and planning projects.
These projects are intended to help private, nonprofit entities that need a one-time infusion of federal assistance to establish and carry out multipurpose community food projects. Projects are funded from $10,000 to $300,000 and from one to three years and require a dollar-for-dollar match in resources. Funds have been authorized through 2007 at $5 million per year.
Examples of funded projects include expanding access to healthy and local foods in a low income, high unemployment area by employing teens to develop community gardens and market their produce; a county-wide operation of community kitchens for micro-enterprise development with low-income participation and leadership; and improving access to healthy foods through a variety of methods, including supermarket development, promoting local produce, a community kitchen and educational programs.
State
Recipient
Grant Amount
AK
Calypso Farm and Ecology Center, Ester
$93,172
AZ
Developing Innovations in Navajo Education, Inc., Winslow
$299,700
AR
Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, Elkins
$124,825
CA
Alameda Point Collaborative, Alameda
$154,890
CA
New Alternatives, Inc., San Diego
$299,640
CA
East Bay Asian Youth Center, Oakland
$145,200
CA
Community Food Security Coalition, Santa Cruz
$213,284
CA
Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Cruz and San Benito Counties, Watsonville
$25,000
CA
Merced County Community Action Board, Merced
$25,000
CA
Plumas Rural Services, Quincy
$25,000
GA
Union Mission, Inc., Savannah
$25,000
LA
Loyola University, New Orleans
$48,335
ME
Rippling Waters Farm, Steep Falls
$244,756
NM
Dona Ana County Colonias Development Council, Las Cruces
$193,435
NM
Farm to Table, Santa Fe
$65,473
MN
White Earth Land Recovery Project, Callaway
$150,000
MT
Sustainable Living Systems, Victor
$25,000
NY
Massachusetts Avenue Project, Inc., Buffalo
$298,500
NY
Hunger Action Network of New York State, Albany
$283,168
NY
United Community Centers, Inc., Brooklyn
$203,012
NY
World Hunger Year, New York
$248,178
OK
Oklahoma Sustainability Network, Oklahoma City
$299,996
OR
Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, Portland
$253,269
OR
Columbia Gorge Earth Center, Hood River
$25,000
PA
Tabor Community Services, Inc., Lancaster
$159,554
PA
The Food Trust, Philadelphia
$179,950
SC
The Corporation for Economic Opportunity, Columbia
$25,000
SD
Dakota Rural Action, Brookings
$25,000
TN
Rural Resources, Inc., Greeneville
$298,611
WA
Institute for Washington's Future, Seattle
$96,418
WA
Olympic Community Action Programs, Port Townsend
$25,000
WI
Dunn County Economic Development Corporation, Menomonie
$241,500
WI
Central Wisconsin Community Action Council, Inc., Wisconsin Dells
$20,000
WY
Adventures in Learning, Lander
$24,670
CSREES advances knowledge for agriculture, the environment, human health and well-being, and communities by supporting research, education, and extension programs in the Land-Grant University System and other partner organizations. For more information, visit http://www.csrees.usda.gov.
