New Hope Nonprofit The Food Group Locked Out of Federal Funding
The Food Group, a New Hope nonprofit, says it has been locked out of federal farming grants.
Located at 8501 54th Ave. N., the organization provides hunger relief services in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
It provides food to more than 200 food shelves and other partner organizations in the Twin Cities region.
One of its programs teaches new farmers from diverse backgrounds to grow fresh, organic produce through sustainable practices.
“We know how important it is for our local food system to have new farmers come in to farming, right?” said Sophia Lenarz-Coy, executive director of The Food Group. “The average age of a farmer in Minnesota is high. I want to say it’s almost close to 60. So getting new folks into farming is something that just that makes everything better.”
Lenarz-Coy says the U.S. Department of Agriculture helps pay for the farming program through a four-year reimbursement grant.
The Food Group, a New Hope nonprofit, says its been locked out its federal farming grants.
However, the organization recently found that its account had been suspended in the USDA payment system.
It came after President Donald Trump ordered a federal funding freeze in late January.
That decision was later rescinded, but The Food Group still doesn’t have access to its grant funding.
“What’s strange is that they’re reimbursement grants, so you do the work,” Lenarz-Coy said. “We did the work in January and went into the system to be reimbursed for that work. And then the payment system said that our account had been suspended.”
Lenarz-Coy says they’ve been unable to get in contact with the federal agency to fix the problem.
“So the whole thing is just, it really is wild and something we’ve never seen before,” she said. “Federal grants for an organization like ours — they’re some of our, kind of, steadiest grants.”
According to Lenarz-Coy, The Food Group “is a large enough organization with a diversified revenue mix, so we are okay.”
However, the uncertainty makes it difficult to plan for the future of the farming program, Lenarz-Coy said.
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