rural

Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development Patrice Kunesh recently visited Lily PADS Resale Boutique in Peru, IL, a community-supported funding vehicle for two Illinois Valley “Public Action to Deliver Shelter” (PADS) homeless shelters. Rural Development’s 2009 partnership with Hometown National Bank secured a loan guarantee, which PADS used to construct a new retail facility that enabled the organization to warehouse and sell goods from one location. The store has been so successful that Lily PADS recently expanded its storerooms and retail space again.

"This project exemplifies the significance of USDA funding to essential community facilities such as Lily PADS," Kunesh said. "Because of the USDA Community Facility Guarantee, the owner's dream to serve the community became a reality; and because of the owner's perseverance, the resale boutique became successful." So successful in fact that the bank was able to relinquish the guarantee earlier this year. "This is exactly the kind of project USDA Rural Development envisioned - community based and financed, playing a vital role in this rural community, and giving back in multiple ways!"

Earlier this month, volunteers from USDA Rural Development (RD) and the Farm Service Agency (FSA) joined hands with representatives from the Six Nation Agricultural Society’s Indian Village to assist in preparations for the grounds use during the 2013 New York State Fair in Syracuse. The afternoon’s activities included painting, planting, raking and a tour of the grounds.

Cultural Transformation is a USDA initiative that strives to improve community relations, outreach opportunities, and encourage employees to achieve high standards. The initiative highlights how USDA is the People’s Department -- and continues its commitment to improving customer service while creating a diverse, collaborative and highly effective workforce throughout the USDA’s many mission areas.

Back to school means a fun and exciting way to learn for students of Anderson Public School in rural Gallatin County, Montana. Using a Distance Learning and Telemedicine Grant from USDA Rural Development, Anderson Public School and nine other rural schools in Montana installed the necessary equipment to connect their students to share and expand learning opportunities.

Through the web-based portable videoconferencing equipment, the students in this community southwest of Bozeman, Montana have already been able to move beyond the walls of their classroom. The 4^th grade class made a virtual visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, and as the 8^th grade students rode the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, their classmates in the 7^th grade were able to join from back in Montana thanks to the equipment. Enterprising students are already coming up with new curriculum to share with their peers, including a student-led class on using a green screen to make your own videos.

Veterans returning home from overseas tours-of-duty face many challenges as they readjust to civilian life, and one of the most daunting ones is finding employment. Last year, a new program — the Soldiers to Civilians (S2C) Project — was started in rural west Tennessee to give local veterans the training and skills they need to enter into the field of precision agriculture. Thanks to grant assistance from the Department of Agriculture (USDA), project leaders will now be able to expand the S2C program beyond west Tennessee to help even more veterans living in the rural delta areas of east Arkansas and west Mississippi.

The expansion was funded, in part, through USDA's Rural Business Enterprise Grant (RBEG) program, which promotes development of small and emerging businesses in rural areas. Rural Business-Cooperative Service Administrator Lillian Salerno announced the award during a visit to the Memphis Bioworks Foundation, a bioscience-oriented nonprofit organization that is a partner on the S2C project. Memphis Bioworks is one of more than 130 projects in 30 states and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico that are receiving RBEG funds.

Parade formations, 21-gun salutes, solemn flag presentations are all an important part of the duties carried out by our nation’s veterans and their organizations as they help us remember the fallen and show support for our current members of America’s military forces. Each have engrained in their memory the wars or battles fought to keep our nation free and to ensure we live under a true and open democracy.

Recently, I presented members of the Disabled American Veterans in Magoffin County, Ky., a set of keys to a new transport van.  Equipped with handicap accessible ramps, this van will ease the challenge of getting veterans to community events in their area.  The van also will serve as a means of transportation for area veterans needing assistance with visits to doctor appointments and medical facilities.  USDA Rural Development provided Magoffin County a grant for the purchase of this vehicle.

Last week, United States Senators Tom Carper and Chris Coons and USDA officials announced a federal grant award to Primeros Pasos, a non-profit organization dedicated to the establishment of a multi-cultural early child care education center for all children of families living and working in the Georgetown, Delaware area.

USDA recognizes that access to quality child care is a major component in helping the unemployed and underemployed make the transition to employment.  This organization is improving the quality of life in rural America and is gifted with the two elements necessary for the success of this facility -- sound management and community support.

Arsenic is poisonous. It is also just about everywhere, but it is especially prevalent in the groundwater of the Southwest. In the economically challenged City of Freer, Texas, citizens rely on the Freer Water Control and Improvement District (FWCID) to draw water from the underground Catahoula aquifer and deliver safe drinking water. Naturally occurring arsenic levels have remained constant in the region for more than a century. Then, the Environmental Protection Agency’s new national standards took effect and the City of Freer turned to FWCID to take action.

Aided by financial assistance from the USDA Water and Environmental Program, the FWCID has completed a two-phase approach to meeting the district’s water supply and public safety needs. FWCID first received USDA funding to drill two new water wells, each rated at 167 gallons per minute (now a total of eight wells); 13,600 feet of well collection lines; and 15,000 linear feet of well control line to remotely control the wells, and the delivery of raw water from the well site's million-gallon holding tank to the new Arsenic Removal System (Phase II). Previously, water flow was manually controlled by FWCID personnel and gravity fed from the well facility to its customers.

Sussex County, Delaware’s only charter school, the former Sussex Academy of Arts & Sciences middle school, is being re-named “Sussex Academy” as it expands to include a high school.  But unlike most expansion projects, the academy is swapping its old building for an existing building that meets its needs, and it is doing it with help from USDA.

The swap was highlighted recently at an event attended by USDA Rural Development, school officials, and U.S. Senator Tom Carper.

Nellie Buckman is the daughter of a migrant worker.  Growing up her family moved from place to place a lot.  She never really had a place to call home until her adult years when she moved into a little tiny house that was originally from Igloo, South Dakota, which incidentally  is  located on the same lot line as her current residence which was built by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in 1979.  Over the years, the Buckmans raised 10 children in this home.  The transition from the little small house to the HUD house was quite an experience for the family.  The HUD house was much bigger and in the beginning, the children all slept in one bedroom until they got used to having extra space.  Her children now grown, Buckman’s home continues to be a gathering place for her large family.

“I love having a place to call home, to care for, and have all of my trinkets and memories surround me,” said Nellie Buckman.

In June, Tammye Treviño, Administrator for Rural Housing and Community Facilities, traveled to Sitka and Ketchikan, Alaska for National Homeownership Month and discussions with community leaders on the intent of the USDA StrikeForce initiative in Southeast Alaska.

Ms. Treviño also took time in Sitka to visit the historic Sheldon Jackson College campus, a private Christian liberal arts college that was an historic Alaska Native trade school in its inception in the 1800’s. The college stopped operating several years ago.  On the campus are two facilities, a student center and a day care center, funded through USDA Rural Development’s Community Facilities program. With the college closure, its board of trustees elected to transfer the entire remaining campus over to popular and growing fine arts nonprofit – Alaska Arts Southeast, Inc.