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Grow Ohio Valley’s Proposal
Local Food, Local Families, Local Business
First, here is a quick summary of why these ARPA funds exist.
The first two purposes of these ARPA funds, as detailed by the US Department of the Treasury, are to:
(1) Support the economic recovery of impacted households, businesses, and nonprofits
(2) And Support essential workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, the Department of the Treasury has highly encouraged that low-income communities, whose families and businesses have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic, are given first priority in the use of these funds. [Note: The current gov’t language in this document for low-income areas is “Qualified Census Tracts.” These are census tracts that show higher levels of economic hardship and social vulnerability. Most neighborhoods adjacent to downtown Wheeling - these are the beautiful places we call home! - are listed as Qualified Census Tracts.]GrowOV’s proposal has been built to most effectively fulfill these priorities from the Treasury Department.
GrowOV’s proposal ensures that
Local Families and Small Businesses see DIRECT benefit from these funds.
The full 400+ page “Final Rule” on these funds can be read here. Don’t be intimidated! The first 20 pages cover the majority of the important stuff.
So, what are the details of our proposal?
Small businesses, and especially food businesses, have been devastated by the COVID-19 crisis. At the start of the pandemic, Grow Ohio Valley quickly stepped up to keep local restaurants afloat and our community fed fresh local food during this crisis. Our Restaurant-to-Schools program delivered nearly 50,000 meals, paid local restaurants over $200,000, and paid local farmers over $40,000 - all to make sure our community made it through the shutdowns.
Over the past year and a half, however, GrowOV has been planning to do far more than keep things afloat. We are building the capacity to transform our local food economy, making Wheeling a destination city for a thriving independent culinary culture.
First, this requires recovering from the setbacks of this crisis. But more than this, it means training and supporting local farmers to expand and specialize. It means equipping and guiding food entrepreneurs to scale-up production and open new businesses. We are working to ensure that together we come back stronger than ever.
Our proposal has four main projects that work together to Repair and Expand our local food system, always helping those who need it most.
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Securing SNAP Stretch for Wheeling’s low-income families
As you know, the Public Market is a non-profit business that exists to serve families, local farmers, and budding new food businesses. One of the primary ways we do this is through offering a 50% discount to SNAP recipients on local healthy food items. This program has exploded in popularity! When the highest quality, most healthy, local produce, eggs, and meat are made accessible to all, Wheeling residents flood in to get them. We want local, high quality foods, produced by people in our community. Not pre-packaged, processed, low-quality alternatives. This discount also supports local farmers and food businesses by expanding a reliable local market for their goods. Everyone wins!
The City of Wheeling has a unique opportunity to secure this program for years to come with a small investment. As the Public Market expands
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Match funding for the Edible Mountain project
If you haven’t heard, GrowOV just secured $3.2million from West Virginia’s Abandoned Mine Land program to improve recreational opportunities on Wheeling’s Vineyard Hill. A full Half Million dollars of these funds are going directly to improving the Nelson Jordan Center, Wheeling’s only recreation center for youth downtown. That’s right! This is a city amenity that has fallen into disrepair, and GrowOV has raised the funds to support it. We are dedicated to improving our home city.
The other funds will produce trails, a park with the most impressive view overlooking downtown, and a massive clean-up and restoration project for the forests bordering our downtown. This money is going directly to Wheeling! GrowOV is bringing our community together to improve the beauty and safety of our city. This project will attract visitors, it will make downtown a more beautiful and safe place to spend time, and it will ensure all of our youth have healthy, safe outdoor recreation.
We are asking the City of Wheeling to join us in matching the funds we have raised for this project. As West Virginian’s, this is YOUR land! Come join us in making sure we are good stewards of the natural spaces in our downtown. Let’s make the forests in our city beautiful!
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Technical Assistance for Expanding the Public Market
This point is key: The Public Market is NOT a single business. We are a FARMERS MARKET that provides high traffic retail space for local farmers and food businesses to sell their products on consignment. This means local food businesses get to (1) pick their own prices and (2) keep the vast majority of their profits. Come in and learn about the ~120 local businesses that sell their products at the Public Market!
This means that when the Public Market expands, a whole network of local food businesses also expands. That is our mission; to promote and support this integrated local food system.
The Public Market is growing, but because of the pandemic, a good deal of our resources have gone to recovering from setbacks due to COVID-19. We are seeking an investment from these ARPA funds to (1) update our purchase and inventory systems, (2) expand online ordering and delivery services, and (3) increase the amount of local vendors we support. These changes bring more business downtown and support a whole network of small businesses in our community.
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Local Farm and Food Business Incubation and Acceleration
Over the past year you may have heard of GrowOV’s play to create a Food Hub in downtown Wheeling. Read here in case you missed it. This is GrowOV’s biggest plan to support the future of small business in Wheeling.
We know that starting and expanding business is difficult. It’s expensive and it’s risky. The GrowOV Food Hub will be a shared commercial kitchen and food processing facility that provides farmers and food businesses with the equipment and infrastructure they need to expand without huge upfront investments.
A young bakery, for instance, can pay a minimal fee to use Food Hub ovens to DOUBLE their production, without the expense of purchasing new space and new ovens themselves. A small farmer can come to Wheeling to wash, chop, and package their produce to reach far more markets, all without having to invest in their own facilities to meet food regulations. This translates to quicker growth, more secure businesses, and ultimately more jobs in Wheeling.
The investment of ARPA funds in this project is a vital investment in small business recovery in Wheeling.
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Thank you for working with us to make our community the healthiest place to live and work in Appalachia.
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