| REAP 2009 - 1 Applicant: Tom Benevento, Harrisonburg, VA Title: Muddybike Urban Garden Project and Growing Power! Non-profit Sponsor: New Community Project Allocated Funds : $3000 | Funded Activities: Muddybike Urban Garden Project increased soil fertility and market garden vegetable production to support and help homeless men and women become 75%- 90% financially self-sufficient. Met requests for new community gardens and expanding gardens at the Liberty Street trailer court as requested its residents. Developed a second community garden on land donated by the Harrisonburg Mennonite Church. This community garden (located on a segment of seven acres in the city of Harrisonburg) enabled residents of a large low-income apartment complex to grow local organic food. Members of the Harrisonburg Mennonite Church also had plots in the community gardens enabling them to interface, learn, and share with the mostly Latino and African American apartment dwellers. Students from Eastern Mennonite School, Bridgewater College, Eastern Mennonite University and the local high school helped in garden preparations and Middle School students and the elderly helped prepare seedlings. |
| REAP 2009-2 Applicant: Joshua Machinga, Kitale, Kenya, Africa Title: GROW BIOINTENSIVE; A 10 Acre Mini- Agricultural (Ag) Center in Rift Valley Province, Kenya. Non-profit Sponsor: Ecology Action, Willits, CA. Allocated Funds: $1500 |
Funded Activities:
Expansion of the Common Ground Program (CGP) GROW BIOINTENSIVE Mini-Ag Centre and farming activities in the Rift valley Province to facilitate use by the Ministry of Agriculture as a farmer's field school and accommodate more people attending trainings and research.
Establishment of a 10-acre mini farm near CGP's Pathfinder Academy on donated land to provide food for orphans and vulnerable children and a site for research and training for farmers. The centre will have demonstration plots and a training shade where farmers receive hands-on training. The grant will also enable CGP to fence the land, purchase training materials, tools and starter seeds (tree and food crops). The starter seeds requested will be distributed only to the members of the indigenous communities in the Rift Valley to enable them to grow their own food, some for the first time, and save seeds for the future. A bicycle would be bought for transportation during project implementation.
Food produced at the Mini-Ag Center will be donated to Pathfinder Academy to feed 300 Orphans and vulnerable children. These children will also learn food production skills and go out to train villages on food production and to distribute seeds and tools. This will in turn teach them the art of giving even though they are needy themselves. |
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