THE COMMUNITY FOOD PROJECT GRANTS 1997 Release No. 0358.97 Backgrounder THE COMMUNITY FOOD PROJECT GRANTS 1997 The Tohono O'odham Community Food System Jubilee Agriculture Ministries, Sells, Arizona -- $80,000 This project will increase the food self-reliance of the Tohono O'odham people by developing linkages between producers, markets, consumers and nutritionists. Program directions include the development and expansion of community gardens, organization of a desert food collecting program, redevelopment of traditional Tohono O'odham flood-based farming practices, development of direct-to-customer and wholesale markets for traditional Tohono O'odham foods, initiation of culturally sensitive nutrition education programs and support for the development of agriculture-based micro-enterprise projects. Contact: Tristan Reader 520-383-4966 Food Security Among Farm Worker Communities in the Salinas Valley Rural Development Center, Salinas, California -- $105,000 This project will create permanent, self-sustaining ways for low-income farm worker and migrant communities to access, produce and market high quality, safe, nutritious and affordable food. Members of the community will be trained to grow a wide variety of organic vegetables, and to create permanent, self-supporting ways to market and distribute their produce. A Public Education and Policy Council will be established to coordinate local food security issues, initiate appropriate policies and implement a community education program. Contact: Jose Montenegro 408-758-1469 Community Food Security Coalition Training And Technical Assistance Project The Community Food Security Coalition, Hartford, Connecticut -- $185,000 This project is national in scope and designed to promote community food projects by direct assistance to communities, pro-actively promoting the concepts of comprehensive community food system planning, and offering small grants to communities to help them develop linkages, conduct needs assessments, and support entrepreneurship. Contact: Andrew Fisher 310-822-5410 From Crisis Management to Creative Construction: Building Sustainable Food Systems Five Loaves and Two Fish Food Pantry, Griffin, Georgia -- 156,000 Over thirty partners have come together to conduct this project which will transform their community response to poverty and hunger from "firefighters" to "architects" building food security and self-reliance. A systems approach will bring representatives from academia, food retail, local business, financial, educational, health, social service, religious and governmental organizations together in multi-sector, multi-agency involvement enhancing and building local capacity to respond to issues of food security. Contact: Kate McLaurin 770-227-4453 Field to Family Practical Farmers of Iowa, Boone, Iowa -- $135,600 Local churches, social service organizations, community supported agriculture (CSA) groups, sustainable agriculture organizations, academia, and businesses are coming together to rebuild community ties between diverse sectors of the food system. The goals of the project are to (1) make fresh, locally grown produce available to low-income households along with the opportunity to design and develop the local food system; (2) link low-income Field to Family participants with churches and agencies now organizing to help families leave welfare successfully; (3) increase use of locally grown food and foster the start-up and growth of small to medium sized producers, and; (4) promote the role local agriculture can play in supporting communities. Contact: Gary Huber 515-294-8512 Beauregard Community Food and Nutrition Program Beauregard Community Action Association, Inc., DeRidder, Louisiana -- $50,000 This project builds coalitions among low-income residents and a renewed spirit of cooperation between resource agencies among all sectors and volunteers. The project will increase access to fresh produce and increase household incomes. Increased self-reliance over food will be attained by providing households the opportunity to produce their own food, preserve the food, learn how to prepare nutritious meals, preserve their seeds for the next planting season, make a compost fertilizer, and to shop for foods in a more economical manner. Contact: Winkie Branch 318-463-7895 Western Waldo County Food Project Coastal Enterprises, Inc., Wiscasset, Maine -- $164,000 This is a comprehensive food system project that creates new linkages in an economically stressed rural region in Maine. The three main activities of this project include; a downtown center, the community cafe, organized around local foods, and used to prepare, distribute, and celebrate good food from local farms and gardens; a school based education program, "Kids, Food and Community," that teaches local children about food, farming and the interconnections with community; and the "Community Farm Incubator" that supplies farm products to local markets and offers job training and provides a low-cost means of starting out in farming. The funded project will act as an agent to bind these three activities into a whole project to benefit the community. Contact: John Piotti 207-948-3335 Detroit Urban Cooperative Agricultural Network (Detroit U-Can) Hunger Action Coalition of Michigan, Detroit, Michigan -- $180,000 Project participants have come together to create a sustainable alternative food related economic sector that can enhance food security in severely blighted urban communities. Five specific projects will develop community capacity within Detroit's Empowerment Zone's economic sector. Youth projects will build hope for children and a foundation for the future of urban agriculture. Contact: David Hacker 313-963-7788 The Youth Farm and Market Project: Building a Neighborhood, Youth-based Food System The Regeneration Partnership, St. Paul, Minnesota -- $170,000 The Youth Farm and Market Project established in 1995 has successfully brought youth in the food system in both producing and marketing produce in low-income communities. This project will expand to three new neighborhoods and create opportunities for urban youth to be an integral part of neighborhood-based food systems; provide high quality food to low-income people; and catalyze a neighborhood food system that incorporate a wide variety of neighborhood organizations and local agencies as collaborators. Contact: David Brant 612-374-3993 Missoula Food System-Community Agriculture Project Missoula Nutrition Services, Missoula, Montana -- $175,000 A comprehensive collaboration of food, health, university, volunteer and social organizations will continue with a variety of community food projects plus initiate intensive gleaning, composting, marketing, and community education activities. The coalition of organizations integrates families and individuals into the food system to produce high quality food for low- income people while developing skills that lead to household self-sufficiency and agricultural entrepreneurship. Some unique characteristics of the project include; a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farm for low-income people; welfare recipients participating to complete required community service; food bank production plots plus a "Grow a Row"in home gardens for donation; and marketing and sustainable agriculture education programs. Contact: Mary Pittaway 406-523-4740 Isle's Community Farm Project Isles, Inc., Trenton, New Jersey -- $114,000 The Isles' Community Farm Project plans to develop a model program with a five-acre community farm to increase the supply of affordable, nutritious food to low-income families while creating economic development opportunities. Forty-low income residents will be trained in food/plant production and business skills and 14 seasonal jobs will be created. Revenues will be generated from the sale of fresh produce and horticulture products including ornamentals. Produce will be distributed to low-income people through an on-site retail farm stand, CSA shares, farm-stands in low-income communities, and emergency food providers. Contact: Ronald Friedman 609-393-5656 The City Farms Learning Alliance, New York, New York -- $198,500 The City farms project is an alliance of five New York organizations collaborating to improve regional food security. The project will; improve availability of fresh food in New York's low- income neighborhoods by expanding the capacity of urban growers to produce healthful, nutritious food and distribute it through established food sites; promote community-based entrepreneurship and economic opportunity through food production, processing and marketing; strengthen urban markets for farmers by fostering relationships among city residents and regional and local growers; and build public support for the preservation of open space for food production. Contact: Kathy Lawrence 212-666-2168 Expanding Access to Fresh Produce for Poor New Yorkers Community Food Resources Center, New York, New York -- $95,000 The project activities will demonstrate to retailers that consumers will buy quality produce, help retailers gain expertise buying and selling produce, prove to wholesalers that they will make money if they change their operations and help create linkages between urban retailers and regional farmers. Contact: Pamela Fairclogh 212-344-0195 Washburn Community Food System Development Project Narrow Ridge Earth Literacy Center, Washburn, Tennessee -- $10,400 Diminished agricultural enterprises and a weakened economic base within Washburn have created significant barriers to food security. The purpose of this project is to build community organizational infrastructure and leadership capacity to enhance the nutritional well-being of Washburn families by increasing access to high quality food through lowering of physical and economic barriers, to strengthen of educational resources to enhance capacity for informed decision making and appropriate resource utilization choices, and to build community infrastructure for long term collaborative partnerships among stakeholders inside and beyond the Washburn community. Contact: Bill Nickle 423-497-2753 Central Texas Sustainable Food Project Sustainable Food Center, Austin, Texas -- $145,000 This project will leverage the success of an earlier project that showed community food production was a viable method for meeting the food needs of low-income people. Two communities will collaborate, sharing expertise in operating community food programs. The Sustainable Food Center will expand its program to include food-based business development to move low-income people form "clients" to self-employed entrepreneurs. This will be accomplished by piloting a "Farm-to-Chef Marketing Network" developing a micro-enterprise program and expanding "Team Green!," a youth training program. Contact: Kathleen Fitzgerald 512-385-0080 Houston Wards Youth Food-for-Market Project Urban Harvest, Inc., Houston, Texas -- $121,500 Inner city middle school youth gain practical gardening skills and learn not only about food and nutrition, but also how to apply this knowledge to income earning enterprises in this project. By selling produce to a community center co-op and cafe, money is returned to the community while providing nutritious food to the center's patrons. In addition, the sale of food and value-added products at a city-wide green market enables youth to demonstrate that training and diligence can provide income. The youth can further help the food security of the community by building raised bed intensive gardens for backyard gardens in return for payment. Contact: Robert Randall 713-880-5540 People Grow The Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger, South Burlington, Vermont -- $200,000 Eight leading Vermont agriculture, food and anti-hunger organizations have come together to work in one rural and one urban Enterprise Community to build these communities' self-reliance in meeting their own food needs. Strategies will include involvement in community gardens and Community Support Agriculture (CSA); development of food preparation, preservation and marketing skills that can be used to grow, preserve and market Vermont produce and to prepare low-cost, nutritious meals at home; increasing availability of fresh, local produce at emergency food sites; coordinating food assistance and education that offer gardening and nutrition education and healthy meals to low-income children; creating opportunities for local purchasing and market development for foods produced through micro-enterprise. Contact: Robert Dostis 802-865-0255 Tahoma Food System The Tahoma Food System, Tacoma, Washington -- $105,000 Southeast Asian families, already trained in agriculture in their native countries will be given training in organic farming and direct niche marketing until they have the experience and funds to start their own farms, or become economically self-sufficient. This builds on an already successful urban farm that provides paid jobs for homeless people and farm labor for an organic Community Supported Agriculture Project and assists the Tahoma Food System develop into a strong multi-sector food and farm system non-profit organization. Contact: Carrie Little 253-572-6582 # NOTE: USDA news releases and media advisories are available on the Internet. Access the USDA Home Page on the World Wide Web at http://www.usda.gov