Chris Kowalczewski is the Chair of the Grants Committee for the local nonprofit. She says the Alaska Community Foundation, which helped fund the grant, gave them a lot of freedom in determining which projects would be eligible.
“They gave us leeway in defining what food security meant,” says Kowalczewski. “So there was a discussion in the committee about that, and we came up with these two categories of either increasing food production locally and hopefully sustainably, and distributing food more in the community.”
Five Sitka organizations, including the Sitka Food Coalition and Sitka Homeless Coalition, were awarded grants ranging from $1500 to $3000. The funds will support projects ranging from a food pantry to providing free community dinners. The City of Port Alexander was also awarded $1500 to support community garden plots.
These projects are incredibly exciting to Robin Sherman, who is the chair of the Legacy Foundation’s advisory board.
“One of the things that I think is great is that we funded a number of different solutions to the problem of access to healthy food in our communities,” says Sherman. “And that’s always good.”
In an email exchange with KCAW, foundation Program Manager Jennifer Mac Donald says that the grant distribution checks have already been mailed to grantees. She says that each recipient has a year to complete their project and report outcomes to the organization.
Kowalczewski says they were unable to sponsor three proposed projects due to lack of funds. But she says organizations shouldn’t lose all hope.
“Based on the fact that we got quite a few applications, there is a need out there for this kind of support,” says Kowalczewski. “So it’s very possible that we would set that as a priority for funding in the future.”
The Sitka Legacy Foundation’s regular grant cycle will be starting in late August. Kowalzewski anticipates there will be a larger pot of funds to issue grants from due to additional City of Sitka funding.
