Catalyzing Resource Development & Capacity within NJ Food Systems
Principal Investigator: Cara Cuite, PhD
Community Partner(s): New Jersey Food Democracy Collaborative and Camden Food Security Collective
Location: Camden, Newark, and New Brunswick
Food insecurity is a significant problem for residents of Camden, New Brunswick, and Newark. There is a clear need for additional food resources for the community, and there is also a tremendous need for additional financial support for food-related non-profits.
In each of the REACH target cities, there is an active network of local food organizations (LFOs) that serve a variety of community functions including emergency food access, technical services to farmers, land preservation, workforce training, and more.
This project is designed to publicize and provide training on the REACH-funded New Jersey Food System Dashboard. It will also build expertise around grant writing by providing the leaders and staff of LFOs with the needed resources to identify funding and data sources to write successful proposals and secure funding. It will work with up to 24 individual LFOs in the REACH target cities and provide support to regional networks to build funding capacity, strengthen their impact, and aim to obtain larger state and national grants to promote sustainability.