Jesse Rye is co-executive director of Farm Fresh Rhode Island. The food-based nonprofit recently received a couple tranches of funding from both the city of Providence and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
Rye talks with Providence Business News about the financing, what it’s going toward and how it could help the region move toward eating more locally produced food.
PBN: Can you tell our readers about the recent funding Farm Fresh RI received?
RYE: Farm Fresh Rhode Island has been receiving support for the RI Food Hub from a number of sources, which include the public sector, generous individual contributors, and corporate and foundation donors. Our most recent funding came from a very competitive award from the U.S. Conference of Mayors and Wells Fargo CommunityWINS program. With the mayor of Providence as our sponsor, our proposal was selected as one of six projects out of over 250 applications from throughout the U.S. The $150,000 will be applied toward the expansion of our Harvest Kitchen program at the RI Food Hub. Harvest Kitchen provides food-industry training and employment for young people aged 16-20, who are recruited in partnership with the Office of Juvenile Probation at the R.I. Department of Children, Youth and Families.
PBN: What exactly is the money going toward?
RYE: The funds will be used to plan, construct and fit out a new Harvest Kitchen to be located at the Rhode Island Food Hub – a 60,000-square-foot center for food- and farm-related businesses to be developed on a 3.2-acre site in the Valley neighborhood of Providence, which was recently purchased by Farm Fresh. We see the hub as critical infrastructure for R.I.’s local and regional food system, creating an environment that stimulates job creation, small-business success. Farm Fresh RI will make its home at the RI Food Hub, where we will continue the aggregation and distribution of locally grown food, production facilities, opportunities for nutrition education and job training, and retail markets for both individual consumers and wholesalers.
PBN: How is the project proceeding and what’s your projected timeline for completion?
RYE: This is a $14 million project and we are advancing on a number of fronts that include fundraising, planning and design, and identifying other food- and farm-related businesses that would like to co-locate with us at the Hub. We have a great development team assembled and our goal is to be under construction before the end of 2018, with completion toward the end of 2019. For more information about the project and everyone that is pitching in, please visit foodhub.farmfreshri.org.
PBN: What was the impetus behind building/running this hub?
RYE: Farm Fresh has been connecting farmers and eaters for 12 years through a variety of initiatives, ranging from farmers markets; aggregation and distribution of local produce; Harvest Kitchen, which converts raw local produce into value-added products – think apples to applesauce; and nutrition-education programs. With continued growth and expansion a constant, the time has come for us to build a facility that is designed to meet our needs and will permit continued expansion. Farm Fresh has adopted the Food Solutions New England “50 by 60” vision, which means that by the year 2060, New England will produce 50 percent of what we consume. New England is close to 10 percent now and the Hub represents an opportunity to move closer to that goal and strengthen our regional food infrastructure.
PBN: Is the nonprofit looking for additional funding for this project? Why or why not?
RYE: But of course! We are making good progress to our $14 million goal, but any and all donations are welcome! Please send donations to: Farm Fresh RI, 1005 Main Street Pawtucket, RI 02860.
Eli Sherman is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Sherman@PBN.com, or follow him on Twitter @Eli_Sherman.
