18 Farms Share $175K in Resilience Grants
Also, Gardeneers to Benefit from Sales of Chicago-Grown Tomatoes
I’ve Seen Better Days
It is some kind of ugly outside today. Over here by the lake we are completely socked in with fog. Yesterday morning was awfully pretty though, so I’m sharing the Lake Shore View to brighten your day. And mine.
Alliance’s Resilience Fund: $175K to 18 Farms
Illinois Stewardship Alliance announced the list of 18 farms that will receive a total of $175,000 in grants from the Alliance’s Resilience Fund. The Fund provides grants of up to $10,000 per farm to enable them to invest in on-farm infrastructure that increases the capacity and resilience of the individual farms and the local food system as a whole.
The Resilience Fund grants received financial support from the Chicago Region Food System Fund.
Get all the details in the Alliance’s release below.
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Announcing 2022 Resilience Fund Grant Recipients
18 local farms receive a total of $175,000 to increase capacity and resilience of the local food system
SPRINGFIELD, IL (4/4/22) - With generous financial support from the Chicago Region Food System Fund, Illinois Stewardship Alliance is pleased to announce 18 local farms will receive up to $10,000 in individual grants through the Resilience Fund, totaling $175,000.
The Resilience Fund provides Illinois local food producers help with investment in on-farm infrastructure necessary to increase the capacity and resilience of the local food system. In total, 127 applications requesting over $1 million in funding were received from farmers across the state.
A committee of 13 Illinois-based agriculture and food system specialists reviewed the applications and selected 18 farms with the most compelling projects with whom to provide up to $10,000 each to implement their proposed projects.
A few examples of how local farmers plan to use the Resilience Fund grant to improve the capacity and resilience of the local food system are:
Dr. Jifunza Wright of Black Oaks Center in Pembroke Township plans to use the Resilience Fund grant to invest in equipment that will be shared by multiple small farm operations to increase perennial fruit tree orchards and berry production as part of the Pembroke Farmland Restoration project.
Rachael Smedberg of Tulip Tree Gardens located in Beecher plans to use the Resilience Fund grant to purchase a walk-in cooler and cold-shipping supplies to expand the capacity of their community supported agriculture (CSA) program. With an increase in cold storage, the farm will be able to provide meat and dairy products to their members, as well as significantly increase their membership, including the addition of more members using Federal supplemental nutrition assistance program (SNAP) benefits.
Stephanie Dunn of Star Farm in Chicago plans to use the Resilience Fund grant to begin phase one of Stockyard Gardens, a 36,000 sq. ft. urban farm located on previously vacant land in Chicago. The farm will not only produce nutritious, locally grown food for the community, but will be an incubator site for two beginning farmers and host hundreds of volunteers and program participants each year.
The 2022 Resilience Fund was made possible by the financial support of the Chicago Region Food System Fund.
"COVID-19 has had an immense impact on farmers, particularly those who focus on selling their crops locally," said Daniel Doyle, program officer for the Lumpkin Family Foundation in Mattoon, a founding donor to the Chicago Region Food System Fund.
"These producers are the backbone of a resilient local food system and their success is critical to our collective food security. Their ability to access capital in order to pivot business models, ensure their ability to get products to consumers, and increase production to meet community need has been critical.”
“The Chicago Region Food System Fund is proud to support programs like the Illinois Stewardship Alliance Resilience Fund and their great work providing resources to the family farms we depend upon," Doyle added.
A full list of grant recipients and projects can be found below. To learn more about each grant recipient and project, visit the Illinois Stewardship Alliance’s 2022 Resilience Fund Grant Recipient Webpage.
2022 Resilience Fund Grant Recipients
All Seasons Farm - Stage One Cool Down Station (Cobden)
Black Oaks Center - Pembroke Farmland Restoration (Pembroke Township)
Chanticlare Farm - Hoophouse (Winfield)
Fresher Together - “The Water Only Flow, Thanks to the Well” (Chicago)
Garlic Breath Farm - Organic Roadside Farm Stand (Elburn)
Glaciers End - On-farm Kitchen (Johnston City)
Gorman Farm Fresh Produce - High Tunnel & Two-Wheel Tractor (Monee)
Greene Fields Farm - On-farm Refrigeration (Greenfield)
Jo Daviess Local Foods - Cold Storage Buildout(Elizabeth)
Leaf Food Hub - Local Equitable Access to Food (Carterville)
Mint Creek Farm - Innovating Mobile Prairie for Pastured Poultry(Cabery)
Piscasaw Gardens - Sweet Corn Irrigation (Harvard)
Sowing Seed Urban Garden Center - Operation Grow More (Rock Island)
Star Farm Chicago - Stockyards Gardens (Chicago)
The Flock Farm - Walk-in Freezer (Anna)
The Mad Farmer’s Garden - Tools for Continued Soil Health (Coal Valley)
Three Rivers Community Farm - Improving Potato Production & Harvesting (Elsah)
Tulip Tree Gardens - Shipping & Refrigeration (Beecher)
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About Illinois Stewardship Alliance
Illinois Stewardship Alliance is an alliance of farmers and eaters. Our mission is to find, connect, train and amplify the leadership of farmers and eaters who use their choices and their voices to shape a more just and regenerative local food and farm system. Learn more at www.ilstewards.org.
About the Chicago Region Local Food System Fund
The Chicago Region Food System Fund focuses on hunger and business disruption in the local food system—from production to processing to distribution to consumption—in an area approximately 200 miles from Chicago. Seven founding donors made the Chicago Region Local Food System Fund possible. They are The Builders Initiative, Food:Land:Opportunity (funded through the Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust), Fresh Taste, Little Owl Foundation, The Lumpkin Family Foundation, Walder Foundation, and Walter Mander Foundation. The fund welcomes additional support. Visit www.ChicagoRegionFoodFund.org for more information.
Buy Heirloom Tomato Starters, Help Gardeneers
Gardeneers is an amazing Chicago nonprofit that builds and maintains school gardens on the city’s South and West sides and presents programming that brings vital food information to our youngest eaters in those communities. And they are currently running a fundraiser that is both unique and timely — especially if you are planning to grow your own tomatoes this summer.
Gardeneers is teaming with Bob Zeni, aka Chicago Tomato Man, who is currently taking orders for starter plants of more than 90 types of tomatoes, many of them heirloom varieties. Gardeneers will receive 60 percent of the profits from the sales.
The Chicago Tomato Man website, where orders for the plants are being taken, describes the owner as follows: “I’m Bob Zeni. A few years ago, I wanted to garden in the winter and I hated those nasty water balloons that supermarkets claim are tomatoes. I began growing heirloom tomato plants from seeds on the workbench downstairs. One or two plants weren’t enough. Oh, no! The more varieties I tried, the more I grew. Pretty soon I was growing hundreds. Now I grow more than 2,000 seedlings every year.”
The site adds that the plants are free of herbicides, pesticides or any growth treatments, “just a lot of tender, loving care.”
Click the button below to order your tomato plants and help Gardeneers.