Top L to R: Little Ones Learning Center; Keres Children's Learning Center; Our Core Inc.; HoChunk Community Development Corps. Bottom L to R: Dreaming Out Loud; Anishinaabe Agriculture Institute; Can Wigmunke; Palette of Expressions.
National Farm to School Network is pleased to announce the second round of grants awarded from our COVID-19 Relief Fund. This round, 15 organizations have each received a $5,000 grant to support their efforts helping kids and families continue eating, growing and learning about just and sustainable food – and farmers continuing to produce and supply it – during this global pandemic.
When the COVID-19 crisis emerged early this year, National Farm to School Network made a strategic decision to shift our planned programmatic activities to focus on providing support through these unprecedented times. This included reallocating our funding resources to go directly towards supporting community-based projects that are keeping those who have been most impacted by systemic inequities fed and cared for.
As an organization rooted in a vision of a just food system, we have been committed to ensuring that the resources of our COVID-19 Relief Fund specifically reach and impact communities that have been systematically underserved and disproportionately affected by this pandemic. This round of funding was dedicated to organizations led by and serving Black and Indigenous communities. We are proud to be able to support the efforts of these 15 organizations in meeting the urgent needs of their communities:
Anishinaabe Agriculture Institute - White Earth Reservation (Minnesota)
To support the transformation of food production and nurture youth through gardening and raising chickens, pigs and horses.
Can Wigmunke, the Rainbow Tree's Rebel Earth Incubator Farm - Oglala Lakota Nation, Pine Ridge Reservation (South Dakota)
To support Rebel Earth Incubator Farm in expanding food production, training new farmers online and continuing existing operations through the pandemic.
Charles W. Reid Help Center - Michigan
To support food bundle deliveries to families and seniors, providing nutritious fresh produce and other healthy food to those in need.
Dreaming Out Loud, Inc. - Washington D. C.
To support the Farm and Food Hub at Kelly Miller, a 2-acre project and central food hub that grows healthy food and aggregates, stores and distributes food to the District.
E. E. Rogers SDA School - Mississippi
To support families by creating a safe environment where students who need somewhere to go during virtual learning days can come during the pandemic. The project includes healthy meals and technology resources that will continue student learning safely and healthily.
Fortunate Kids - Michigan
To provide young scholars with a fresh farm basket alongside healthy meals and snacks, to nourish their minds and bodies during the summer months.
HoChunk Community Development Corp. - Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska Reservation (Nebraska)
To support the piloting of a farm to food bank model that will prioritize serving families with children, elders and families that have been directly impacted by COVID-19.
Keres Children's Learning Center - Cochiti Pueblo (New Mexico)
To provide fruits and vegetables, sourced from local farmers, to Keres Children's Learning Center families during this time of pandemic so that they will continue to be healthy and active.
Little Ones Learning Center, Hand, Heart and Soul Project - Georgia
To support the Hand, Heart and Soul Project and provide Small Bites Adventure Club local food taste test kits for children and their families to use at home.
National Women In Agricultural, Texas Chapter - Texas
To support the Engaging Agricultural Resources Together Honorably (E.A.R.T.H) program, which will increase the production of fresh produce for residents living in a food desert community in Waco, Texas.
Our Core Inc. - Family and Farmer Relief - New York
To broaden and expand emergency food access to the Newburgh community, prioritizing supporting small, Black, local farmers and with an eye towards teen leadership in food distribution.
Palette of Expressions - California
To support the participation of 10 family child care centers in the Bay Area in a year-long project that introduces farm to school curriculum and focuses on gardening and nutrition with young children.
Picuris Pueblo - Picuris Pueblo (New Mexico)
To retrofit an agricultural lab to set up a vegetable nursery, to develop a Youth operated chicken coop, and to teach skills such as leaders and connection to plants and animals.
Seedleaf, Inc. - Kentucky
To convert two growing spaces into outdoor classrooms for use by school teachers and parents who are homeschooling during the 2020-2021 school year. The sites will shift from being solely community gardens to become spaces for engaged student learning.
Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition, Inc. - Virgin Islands
To support the emergency and collaboration efforts of the Virgin Island Good Food Coalition, including sourcing and distributing emergency fresh food boxes.
Since launching the COVID-19 Relief Fund in May, National Farm to School Network has awarded a total of $120,000 to 24 organizations across the country. More information about additional awardees can be found here. Our COVID-19 Relief Fund has been made possible by the generous support of small donors like you who share our vision of farm to school and farm to ECE programs supporting strong and just local and regional food systems that strengthen the health of all children, farms, environment, economy and communities across the country.
This round of funding was made possible by donors like you and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Thornburg Foundation and Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems.
Top L to R: Picuris Pueblo; E. E. Rogers SDA School; Charles W. Reid Help Center. Bottom L to R: National Women In Agricultural, Texas Chapter; Seedleaf, Inc.