Health

Reinvestment Fund Awards $22.6 Million to Improve Healthy Food Access in Underserved Communities

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PHILADELPHIA (PRWEB)

Reinvestment Fund today announced $22.6 million in financial assistance awards to 134 projects through the 2021 round of America’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative’s (HFFI) Targeted Small Grants Program. Funding for the HFFI grants program is provided by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), authorized by the 2014 Farm Bill. The program provides one-time catalytic investments in projects that will improve access to fresh, healthy food by creating and expanding fresh food retail and food enterprises.

The 2021 round is the largest since the program launched in 2018. The 2021 Request for Applications (RFA) originally made $4 million available through the program. The pool was expanded to $22.6 million by the USDA, as a result of the $155 million in additional resources for the HFFI program announced by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack last week under the USDA’s framework for transforming the food system. With this investment, the HFFI program will work with stakeholders toward realizing the expanded vision for the program that begins to address the complexity of food access in communities across America.

“The Biden-Harris Administration and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack are committed to creating local and regional food systems that benefit all Americans, from farmers and ranchers to small businesses and families who currently have to travel a long way from home to find fresh, healthy food,” said USDA Rural Development Under Secretary Xochitl Torres Small. “USDA is proud to partner with Reinvestment Fund to ensure that these resources reach the communities where they are needed most, so people can find nutritious food options wherever they live.”

Awardees were selected through a competitive process that was open to eligible fresh food retail projects and food enterprises seeking financial assistance to overcome the higher costs and initial barriers to operating in underserved areas. The program received 566 Letter of Interest submissions to the RFA in December 2021. Based on eligibility, 359 applicants were invited to submit full applications in January 2022, with 294 final applications received by the deadline in March 2022.

As the National Fund Manager, Reinvestment Fund administers the HFFI program on behalf of USDA. The public-private partnership aims to provide capacity building and financing resources to stimulate food business development at scale and build a more equitable food system that supports the health and economic vibrancy of all Americans.

“The legacy of racist policies like redlining and the resulting disinvestment continue to harm communities in so many ways, including through the lack of access to healthy, affordable food,” said Don Hinkle-Brown, President and CEO of Reinvestment Fund. “We are honored to work with the USDA to address some of these historical injustices through the HFFI program by investing in food systems assets that not only increase food access in underserved communities but improve health, strengthen local economies, grow wealth and quality jobs, and develop essential community anchors.”

Awardee projects are located 46 states, in addition to Puerto Rico and Washington DC. Of the 134 grant awardees, 45% serve rural communities and 81% are owned or led by people of color, low-income people, women, and/or native people. Of the awardees, 69% are grocery retail projects. Another 31% of awardees offer alternative retail models including mobile markets, CSAs or food boxes.

Awardees include:

  • The Local Farm Cooperative, a worker-owned, community-based cooperative farm business in Selma, Alabama that seeks to establish a mobile sales unit to sell quality, fresh produce and staple products to underserved communities throughout Dallas County.

  • Manuel’s Food Market, a neighborhood grocer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that will be improving its retail operations by partnering with local farmers to bring fresh produce to the store, developing a commercial kitchen to prepare food, and offering weekly subscription produce boxes.

  • Nalwoodi Denzhone Community General Store, a nonprofit in San Carlos, Arizona, that will address the ongoing food challenges facing the San Carlos Apache communities by developing a general store on a tribally-owned, 90-acre farm.

  • Northeast Grocers, a Black-led neighborhood coalition that has been working to address the lack of grocery stores in Northeast Kansas City, Kansas by leveraging local and philanthropic funding to develop a business model for a cooperative store.

The 2021 HFFI program offered financial assistance in the form of one-time grants to food retailers and food enterprises that aimed to strengthen, expand, and innovate within the food retail supply chain. The program assists a variety of organizations, business models, and capital needs of ventures that process, distribute, aggregate, market, and sell healthy, fresh, and affordable foods to underserved communities and markets. A full list of awardees is available at http://www.investinginfood.com.

While new at USDA Rural Development, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have invested in healthy food projects through Community Development Financial Institutions and Community Development Corporations since 2010. To date, federal support has totaled $270 million in grants and has leveraged an estimated $1 billion in additional financing. It has also supported nearly 1,000 grocery and other healthy food retail projects in more than 35 states across the country, revitalizing economies, creating jobs, and improving health.

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About Reinvestment Fund

Reinvestment Fund is a mission-driven financial institution committed to making communities work for all people. We bring financial and analytical tools to partnerships that work to ensure that people in communities across the country have the opportunities they strive for: affordable places to live, access to nutritious food and health care, schools where their children can flourish, and strong, local businesses that support jobs. We use data to understand markets and how transactions can have the most powerful impact, which has consistently earned us the top Aeris rating of AAA for financial strength and four stars for impact management. Our asset and risk management systems have also earned us an A+ rating from S&P. Since our inception in 1985, Reinvestment Fund has provided over $2.7 billion in financing to strengthen neighborhoods, scale social enterprises, and build resilient communities. Learn more at reinvestment.com.

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