Awarded Grants

The purpose of this grant is to create an alternative way to ensure healthy and fresh produce for the residents of Fort Belknap. A community garden has already been established, however this can only be accessed for a short growing season. A greenhouse will ensure fresh produce would be available longer. Having fresh produce year around is a needed resource that has been non-existent before. Fort Belknap is experiencing a high rate of obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Fresh organic produce will ensure healthy eating habits and lifestyles prolonging lives and a better way of life on Fort Belknap.

The ultimate purpose of the CNFR is to :1) create a sustainable youth farm and ranch program on the Crow reservation by providing opportunities for youth to learn from Crow ag experts, ranchers, and farmers using traditional and cultural methods, 2) increase awareness and knowledge of local food systems using traditional/tribal resources and course work, 3) leverage funds from junior agriculture loan program to improve youth access/opportunities to farm and ranching, and 4)utilize the Crow Youth Ranch and existing program resources to support local sustainable healthy foods / economies.

The ultimate purpose is to (1) create a new and affordable food product from a spiritually, traditionally and nutritionally important resource that can support California Indian people and others in addressing Type II diabetes; (2) retain knowledge about the importance of acorns in California Indian diets and acorn gathering and processing skills in the community by creating demand for and instilling knowledge in Native youth; and (3) leverage the project results to advance the youths' work to develop a mission-driven, micro-enterprise that serves the health and nutritional needs of California Indians and educates others about California Indians.

As people rely more heavily on store-bought processed foods and traditionally-harvested natural foods become a smaller part of Tribal Members' daily diets, nutrition-related illnesses increase and cultural traditions are in danger of being lost. The ultimate purpose of the Wiyot Tribe Healthy and Traditional Food Systems Initiative is to create greater control over nutrition and food security for the Table Bluff Community by leveraging the abundant natural resources on land and water and utilizing traditional and modern harvest techniques to retain stronger cultural ties between the people and their natural environme

The ultimate purpose of Healthy Futures is to address the needs of village stakeholders by increasing knowledge of healthy food options, cooking, and acquiring affordable healthy foods, all within the context of traditional Iñupiaq values and practices. These skills allow youth and young adults to share healthy and culturally relevant meals with their families, improving access to healthy foods and imbuing a sense of control over their food system. Further, the Healthy Futures project will increase Cooperative Extension's scope on the North Slope, expanding our programming from Barrow to the seven underserved remote outlying villages of the North Slope.

The vision of our Tribe is that our community is growing, living and thriving as we have for thousands of years. The mission of our Tribe is to still be here. This project helps us to be increasingly sustainable in our culture, food system and economy, which directly supports our mission and vision. We want to create a future opportunity for food, retain our current status of food security, utilize our assets already in place to farm, control our food security, increase our food supply and leverage our resources from all funding sources.

The ultimate purpose of our project is to create a properly equipped area to wash, dry, weigh and package our produce that we are growing in our greenhouse/aquaponics facility. In order to best control produce quality the processing area and equipment will be easy to wash and sanitize. This will allow us to retain a strict bio-security process within our facility and increase the efficiency of the operation and the quality of the produce for the consumer.

This project utilizes indigenous foods knowledge to empower youth and increase access to healthy traditional foods. Through guided peer learning, youth create modern connections to native nutrition and healthy living while increasing access to and retaining control of Meskwaki heritage seeds and healthy traditional foods. Additionally, it creates new partnerships within Meskwaki tribal operations that retain and expand Meskwaki Food Sovereignty Initiative programs previously funded through AmeriCorps VISTA.

This project's intended purpose is to gain control of the food system at Taos Pueblo by focusing on the improvement of the health of the community through education and youth/child immersion in traditional/sustainable agriculture, thereby increasing the consumption of Taos Pueblo-produced healthful foods that are dependably available, affordable, and preferred; and to improve food security, strengthen cultural heritage, and stimulate food-related economic development and entrepreneurism as means to increase community involvement in re-learning and maintaining the traditional agricultural past of self-reliance, and utilizing that past to make a viable economic future through sustainable agriculture.

The Ultimate Purpose of the project is to 1) Create a stronger arts economy through Coalition building including the support of businesses & Organizations as well as the tribal government system, and 2) Utilize the current Lakota Artistry Cooperative program in a more effective and efficient way in order to better support the individual Lakota Artists as well as support the Local Arts Economy, and 3) Increase the availability of resources to the local Arts Community. This project will help to provide a stronger, healthier Arts Economy as a whole, as well as providing educational resources to the individual Artists.