“These grants offer exceptional opportunities to make food available so that disadvantaged communities can move toward self-sufficiency,” Conner said.
The CFP program has been meeting the food needs of low-income people for the past 11 years while increasing the self-reliance of communities in providing for their own food, farm and nutrition issues and needs. The program administers three types of projects: community food projects, training and technical assistance projects and planning projects.
These projects are intended to help private, nonprofit entities that need a one-time infusion of federal assistance to establish and carry out multipurpose community food projects. Projects are funded from $10,000 to $300,000 and from one to three years and require a dollar-for-dollar match in resources. Funds have been authorized through 2007 at $5 million per year.
Examples of funded projects include expanding access to healthy and local foods in a low income, high unemployment area by employing teens to develop community gardens and market their produce; a county-wide operation of community kitchens for micro-enterprise development with low-income participation and leadership; and improving access to healthy foods through a variety of methods, including supermarket development, promoting local produce, a community kitchen and educational programs.
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/newsroom/news/2007news/cfp.html