Harvard Pilgrim foundation awards $350K to Maine nonprofits
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation awarded $351,544 to Maine nonprofits as part of its overall $2.5 million in grants to more than 900 nonprofits in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine in 2016.
Since its inception in 1980, the Wellesley, Mass.-based foundation has granted more than $140 million in funds throughout the four states.
In 2016, more than $1.4 million in grants was distributed to the foundation’s Healthy Food Fund initiatives within the region, with funds supporting programs that grow, distribute and/or market fresh food for low-income families and communities across the region.
Healthy Food Fund grants included:
- $952,416 in second-year Healthy Food Fund grants to the 20 nonprofit community food initiatives in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire that grow, distribute and/or market fresh food to low-income families and communities.
- $246,000 in the first round of Healthy Aging grants to 24 nonprofit programs in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire. The funded programs helped older adults eat better and stay connected to their communities through community garden, cooking, and nutrition programs.
- $280,500 to support five mobile farmers’ markets in Worcester and Lowell, Mass., Hartford, Conn., Lewiston/Auburn in Maine and the seacoast of New Hampshire.
Maine grant recipients in 2016 included:
- St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, Cultivating Community, Good Food Bus Mobile Farmers’ Market, Lewiston-Auburn: $60,000.
- Cultivating Community, Expand CSA shares, cooking and nutrition classes, Portland: $50,000.
- Healthy Communities of the Capital Area, expand gleaning and food processing through Restorative Community Harvest Program, southern Kennebec County: $50,000.
- Maine Farmland Trust, SNAP incentives at Farmers’ markets, CSA programs, food hubs, co-ops, in Biddeford, Portland, Saco, South Portland and Westbrook: $50,000.
- Wolfe’s Neck Farm Foundation, Teen Agriculture Program, cooking and nutrition programming, in greater Bath-Brunswick area: $50,000.
- Healthy Aging Grants, community gardens and cooking and nutrition classes for older adults, statewide: $42,000.
- Maine Medical Center and Maine Health, Childhood Obesity Prevention Conference: $10,000.
"While we are supporting community growers and markets on the supply side, we are also helping programs that build consumer demand for healthy food,” added Karen Voci, president of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation. “Through cooking classes, nutrition and shopping education, as well as coupons that double a family’s purchasing power, we can continue to increase customers’ demand for the food grown right here in New England. That’s great for our health, for our environment, and for our economy.”
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