Grow Youngstown Secures $97,000 USDA Grant
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded more than $97,000 in grant money to help local farmers and growers get their products into the hands of the public and into institutions across the Mahoning Valley.
Representatives from Grow Youngstown, an organization formed in 2008 to promote urban gardening, local food production and sales, announced Wednesday that the group received a share of the $52 million in grants recently awarded by USDA to food initiatives across the country that support local growing and farming programs.
"The grant allows us to promote local food in a way that we haven't been able to do before," said Elsa Higby, director of Grow Youngstown. "It increases our capacity as an organization to develop relationships to do more sales, which in turn relates to buying more produce from local farmers."
The USDA awarded Grow Youngstown a $97,186 Local Food Promotion Program Grant through its Agricultural Marketing Service. The money would be used to enhance the organization's Farm to YOU Boost program, a community supported online agricultural market.
"The funds would be used to increase our staff, so that we can go and develop more relationships with corporations that have wellness programs, and perhaps with agencies that deal with low-income populations," Higby says.
Higby added that the grant would also help pay for fall crop food storage, provide technical assistance to Rosemont Farm for the installation of a hoop house to extend its growing season, and help pay for basic marketing and advertising programs.
The Grow Youngstown grant was one of four awarded by USDA last week to local food programs. The lake-to-River Food Cooperative in Youngstown received $99,350; the Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership received $96,733 for its Warren Farmers Market, and the 30-Mile Meal initiative was awarded $100,000 from USDA's Local Food Marketing Program.
It's Grow Youngstown's objective to increase local food sales to institutions, and the organization plans to add 10 institutional accounts over the next two years. "What these larger institutions need is consistency, and they need to make sure that everything is delivered in a way that fits their criteria for health standards," Higby said. "I see that market space opening up over the next two years."
Grow Youngstown distributes produce, beef and dairy products from about 30 farms in the Mahoning Valley over the range of a year, Higby said. Those looking to purchase these items sign up through Grow Youngstown's Farm to YOU program through the organization's website, www.growyoungstown.org.
Customers then can pick up their orders at six locations in the area: The YMCA Boardman, the Austintown and Poland branches of the Youngstown and Mahoning County Public Library, Youngstown State University's Maag Library, Fairview Neighborhood Garden on Youngstown's North Side, and Courthouse Square in Warren.
Jack Kravitz, vice president of Grow Youngstown and owner of Kravitz Deli in Liberty, says the organization is able to distribute locally grown foods to the public with very little markup. Aside from Farm to YOU, the organization has instituted other programs, such as a preparation and preservation program, and an "edible corridor" initiative that focuses on urban agriculture on Youngstown's North Side, he said.
"It's working really well," Kravitz said. "Our revenues have grown from really nothing in 2008 to $61,000 in sales."
Pictured: Elsa Higby, director of Grow Youngstown, and Samantha Turner, executive secretary.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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