Here’s to the 2023 FruitGuys Community Fund Grantees
- By Chris Mittelstaedt
- Reading Time: 2 mins.
Each spring, The FruitGuys Community Fund provides annual grant awards for sustainability projects to small, American farms and agricultural nonprofits. An independent review committee made up of a majority of non-FruitGuys volunteers evaluates and scores the applicants’ projects. The FruitGuys (business) covers all administrative and staffing costs, in addition to contributing to the annual grant budget.
The FruitGuys Community Fund is one of the only organizations in the U.S. that provides microgrants to farms, up to $5,000, for projects that have positive impacts on the environment, local food webs, and farm diversity.
After a couple of COVID years where we had to reduce the number of grantees due to limited funds, I am thrilled to announce our largest class ever in 2023. This year there are 18 grantees that have been awarded a total of $83,757 for projects such as water conservation, energy efficiency, biodiversity, pollination, seed preservation, and ecological land management. The majority of funds were directed to farmers of color, women farmers, LGBTQ farmers, and beginning farmers.
How You can Help Small Farms
These 2023 grant awards were made possible thanks to donors to our Small Farms, Big Impacts campaign, a grant from National Philanthropic Trust, and continued program support from major donor, Aramark. Aramark, the Philadelphia-based food and facilities service provider, began a three-year commitment in 2022 to funding nonprofit farms led by growers who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC).
Like Sheila Cassani, our mission manager, said, “This class of grantees embodies what The FruitGuys Community Fund was founded to do: support small farms and agricultural nonprofits as leaders in their communities around land stewardship, environmental and economic self-sufficiency, sustainability, and food access. We are grateful to all those who have contributed to our work over the years.”
You can read about all of the farm’s and their projects here.
