Impact

2019 Impact Awardees

Financial and Technical Assistance Awardees

In the 2019 funding round, Reinvestment Fund awarded a total of $1.4 million in financial assistance to 10 projects and a total of $400,000 in technical assistance awards to 13 projects. Learn more about these projects below.

*Locations identified on map are representative and not exact.
 

Apple Street Market Cooperative

Location: Cincinnati, Ohio

Grant Type: Financial Assistance; $80,000

Apple Street Market Cooperative is developing a 16,332 square foot full-service grocery store in the diverse Northside neighborhood. The community- and worker-owned store will provide the low- and moderate-income community with access to healthy, fresh, and affordable food, while increasing economic opportunities for residents. The HFFI grant will support predevelopment needs including financial modeling, market study, architectural design, and technology.

 

Apsaalooke Abundance is Here

Location: Crow Reservation, Montana

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

Apsaalooke Abundance is Here is a food sovereignty work group based on the Crow Reservation in Southeast Montana that is working to complete a community-based food assessment and exploring opportunities to improve food access. Technical assistance will advance Apsaalooke Abundance’s work by supporting a community-involved feasibility study for a mobile market or other food retail outlet.

 

Asian Pacific Self-Development and Residential Association (APSARA)

Location: Stockton, California

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

The small low-income Cambodian immigrant and refugee community that resides in the Park Village Apartments (PVA) in Stockton California struggles with access to healthy, affordable, and culturally relevant foods. APSARA seeks to remedy these issues by establishing a cooperative grocery store at PVA. Technical assistance will provide a feasibility study, business planning, and resident training.

 

Black Bear Farms

Location: Willow, Alaska

Grant Type: Financial Assistance; $200,000

Black Bear Farms, a local vegetable grower and distributor in Willow, Alaska, will establish a permanent, year-round, indoor-outdoor retail store with HFFI support. The Black Bear Farms Market will offer Black Bear Farms products as well as other produce and staple foods from local producers. This project will expand access to fresh food for rural low-income residents and provide support to the growing local food economy.

 

Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN)

Location: Detroit, Michigan

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

The Detroit Black Community Food Security Network is developing the Detroit Food Commons Development, a mixed-use project that includes a 12,000 sq. ft. retail grocery space and four incubator kitchen spaces. Technical assistance will support project management to assist with predevelopment activities.

 

Environmental Health Watch

Location: Cleveland, Ohio

Grant Type: Financial Assistance; $76,600

Environmental Health Watch is partnering with several organizations in support of the Kinsman-Central Grocery Store Cooperative Development Project. HFFI grant funds will allow Environmental Health Watch to conduct market analysis, strategic planning, consumer surveys, and community engagement, which will help them determine the feasibility of a cooperatively-owned supermarket in the Kinsman-Central community.

 

Erie Downtown Development Corporation (EDDC)

Location: Erie, Pennsylvania

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

Erie Downtown Development Corporation plans to create a public market, food hall, and commercial incubator kitchen within vacant, blighted, and underutilized historic properties they acquired on North Park Row in downtown Erie, Pennsylvania. Technical assistance will support EDDC to develop a management and operations plan.

 

Farragut Food Club

Location: Brooklyn, New York

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

Enterprise Community Partners of New York City is partnering with several NYC-based organizations to pilot a resident-led collective that opens new online channels for accessing more affordable and convenient food at the Farragut Houses public housing development in Brooklyn. Technical assistance will support the project partners with business model development and an evaluation plan for the pilot.

 

Foodlink, Inc.

Location: Rochester, New York

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

Foodlink, the regional food bank based in Rochester, NY, serves a 10-county area in the Finger Lakes. To improve food equity and access to healthy food, Foodlink also operates the Curbside Market, a mobile market that sells fruits, vegetables, eggs and nuts at more than 80 sites per week in low-income areas without access to supermarkets. To improve and expand the work they started with the Curbside Market, Foodlink proposes to build a full-service grocery in the City of Rochester. Technical assistance will support the initial development of this project with a feasibility study.

 

Forty Acres Fresh Market

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Grant Type: Financial Assistance; $185,000

Forty Acres Fresh Market and Westside Health Authority are partnering for the Austin Grocery Initiative, which will open a 3,000 square foot specialty grocery store that provides affordable fresh food for the west side neighborhood of Austin, Chicago. Forty Acres Market will operate a pop-up market in Austin, one weekend per month for a year, while in the predevelopment stage of the brick and mortar location.

 

Georgia Wellness and Fitness Festival, Inc.

Location: Macon, Georgia

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

The Georgia Wellness and Fitness Festival, Inc. wants to create a stationary and mobile farmers market for low-income residents in Macon, Georgia. Technical assistance will support hiring farmers market consultants to provide training and assist in planning the market.

 

GF Buche Co. (Buche Foods)

Location: Pine Ridge, South Dakota

Grant Type: Financial Assistance; $100,000

Buche Foods will reopen the grocery store located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. After years of unstable operations and poor management, Buche Foods was awarded the contract by the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council to revitalize and manage the grocery store on the reservation. The grant will support the relaunch of the store and will bring stability to a distressed community.

 

Great Plains Food Bank

Location: Fargo, North Dakota

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

The Great Plains Food Bank seeks to expand their ability to reach communities in need of access to groceries through a retail mobile market. Technical assistance will provide a feasibility and market study to examine the opportunities and sustainability for mobile markets within the state.

 

La Semilla Food Center

Location: Dona Ana County, NM, and El Paso, TX

Grant Type: Financial Assistance; $250,000

La Semilla Food Center seeks to decrease the prevalence of food deserts in the Paso del Norte region of southern New Mexico and El Paso, Texas. Rural populations in this community face considerable challenges accessing food due to limited transportation options and the lack of retail food locations in the region. The grant will help La Semilla consolidate their mobile retail efforts at three of their most successful locations, after a three-year mobile market pilot program. La Semilla will also use the grant to establish a micro-retail market, Tiendita, as a permanent home base of operations.

 

City of Lake Village – Economic Development Commission

Location: Lake Village, Arkansas

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

The community of Lake Village is working with partners to explore a full-service food retail project to serve the community. Technical assistance will help support a market study that will include a retail assessment, competition analysis, and an analysis of consumer needs.

 

Louisville Association for Community Economics (LACE)

Location: Louisville, Kentucky

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

Louisville residents west and east of downtown want to open the Louisville Community Grocery – a community-owned grocery store that will improve access to fresh, local and affordable food for residents who live in neighborhoods with limited access to food. Technical assistance will support community engagement and an ownership campaign as well as business planning.

 

Operation Food Search (OFS)

Location: St. Louis, Missouri

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

OFS and the Normandy Schools Collaborative are working together to increase access to fresh, affordable, local food by creating the Normandy Community Market and Learning Kitchen. Technical assistance will help OFS conduct a market analysis study and develop a business plan.

 

REDCO Food Sovereignty Initiative

Location: Todd County, South Dakota

Grant Type: Financial Assistance; $150,000

The REDCO Food Sovereignty Initiative plans to pursue mobile retail market opportunities on the Rosebud Reservation, which is home to the Sicangu Lakota Oyate. REDCO will use the grant to leverage and expand the successful Keya Wakpala Farmer’s Market and to explore the economic feasibility and impact of operating a year-round mobile market throughout the region.

 

Rogers Vegetable Farm

Location: Sumter, South Carolina

Grant Type: Financial Assistance; $110,000

Rogers Vegetable Farm will launch a mobile market that will provide residents of rural Lee and Sumpter counties with access to locally grown, farm-fresh produce and staple foods. The mobile market will stop at community sites and healthcare centers and partner with local organizations to offer cooking demonstrations and produce prescriptions. The Rogers Vegetable Farm Mobile Market will provide increased access to fresh, locally grown healthier food options and employment opportunities for community members.

 

Roanoke College

Location: Roanoke, Virginia

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

Since 2016, the Center for Community Health Innovation at Roanoke College has been engaging partners in predevelopment efforts for a grocery store in the low-income, low-access community of Melrose-Orange. Technical assistance will provide Roanoke College and partners with feasibility studies, site planning, and capitalization planning for the store.

 

Veterans Employment Base Camp and Organic Garden

Location: New Bern, North Carolina

Grant Type: Financial Assistance; $33,000

The Veterans Employment Base Camp and Organic Garden (VEBCOG) is a nonprofit and social enterprise organization located in Eastern North Carolina that provides healthy food workshops, agricultural events, and gardening programs for children in an underserved community. VEBCOG will develop and open a Market Complex that will offer fresh and staple foods for sale, a community kitchen and café, and include youth programming, training, and employment opportunities.

 

West Virginia Food & Farm Coalition

Location: Charleston, West Virginia

Grant Type: Financial Assistance; $215,400

The West Virginia Food & Farm Coalition, along with healthy food access and food system development partners throughout the state, will launch the WV Grocer Lab to support food access in three communities in West Virginia and develop a coordinated approach for future retail development in the region. The WV Grocer Lab will provide consulting services, equipment, inventory, and other supplies to the two rural and one urban retail supermarket projects. The project will also develop a learning network among the retail models to help grocers access regional food supply chain networks, reduce inventory costs and enhance long-term sustainability.

 

Westwood Food Cooperative

Location: Denver, Colorado

Grant Type: Technical Assistance

The Westwood Food Cooperative (WFC) is a cooperative business being incubated by Re:Vision, a 501c3 organization based in Denver, CO. Technical assistance will support Westwood Food Cooperative’s predevelopment by updating the project’s feasibility study and business plan.