Funds from G3 Grant Help Launch Frederick Food Security Network

FREDERICK, Maryland—The Hood College Center for Coastal and Watershed Studies (CCWS) has received a Green Streets, Green Jobs, Green Towns (G3) grant of $65,136 to use over the next year.

The grant will provide funds to expand the CCWS community gardening program and officially launch the Frederick Food Security Network (FFSN) with the support of the Martha E. Church Center for Civic Engagement. In addition to providing meeting space at its Downtown Frederick location, the Martha E. Church Center will make connections between the FFSN and community partners including the Frederick Chamber of Commerce.

The FFSN has three main goals: improve access to fresh produce for low-income families in Frederick’s food deserts, encourage healthy eating behaviors among the targeted population, and reduce local water pollution by utilizing rooftop runoff to irrigate the garden beds. To accomplish this, the FFSN will help partners install vegetable rain gardens, which are built using an innovative method to directly irrigate raised garden beds from rooftop downspouts.

There are more than 500 households in Frederick City food deserts, or areas that have limited access to affordable and nutritious food.

“The Frederick Food Security Network functions as a support structure and resource for new and existing community gardens and helps them improve their effectiveness and longevity,” said Connie Ray, FFSN program manager and Campus Compact Mid-Atlantic AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer. “With this large grant we can continue to grow our work in the community, building partnerships and collaborations.”

The G3 grant is funded by the Chesapeake Bay Trust, the Chesapeake Bay Program, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 3, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and Baltimore City’s Office of Sustainability. The grant was highly competitive, with more than $1.6 million in requests for approximately $750,000 of available funds. The FFSN was one of 21 innovative green infrastructure projects chosen from Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.

Currently, the FFSN works with established gardens at the Housing Authority of Frederick and the Hood/Frederick Memorial Hospital Resource Garden. The FFSN also helped establish a new garden at the Religious Coalition for Emergency Human Needs, and the grant will allow it to partner with the Boys and Girls Club of Frederick and the Islamic Society of Frederick to build additional garden sites. The grant will also provide funds to expand green jobs in Frederick, including Hood College students and local high school students who are part of the Student Homelessness Initiative Partnership summer program, New Horizons.

For more information about the Frederick Food Security Network, visit their Facebook page at facebook.com/ffsnhood or their Instagram @frederickfood.

Media Contact