Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan visited the Utah Food Bank in Salt Lake City today, where she took a tour of the facility and helped assemble meal packets with USDA foods. Merrigan highlighted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), and the ARRA funding that Utah Food Bank received in 2009 and 2010.
The Recovery Act supported the nation’s food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens, by increasing funding to USDA’s Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP).
TEFAP helps supplement the diets of low-income Americans by providing them with emergency food and nutrition assistance at no cost. USDA makes food available to State governments, which distributes it to their emergency feeding network and their affiliates, like Utah Food Bank.
Later in the day, Merrigan toured the construction site of a community health center in Logan, that will be an integral part of the health care network in Utah’s Cache Valley. When it opens this summer, the Cache Valley Community Health Center will offer primary and urgent medical care, behavioral health services, dental care and a pharmacy.
The financing for this project was made available by Recovery Act funds through USDA’s Rural Development Community Facility (CF) program in the amount of a $2,100,000 loan.
Written by Orrin Evans, USDA Office of Communications
More information about USDA's Recovery Act efforts is available at http://www.usda.gov/recovery. Log on to USDA’s YouTube channel to view additional ARRA project highlights, videos are available at http://www.youtube.com/usda - g/c/2A468F5AC6EBCED7
