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