Marin County supervisors have approved 22 grants totaling more than $1.55 million to promote community gardens, food access, food entrepreneurs and other agriculture-related initiatives.
The money for the grants comes from Measure A, a countywide, quarter-cent sales tax designated to support parks, open space and sustainable agriculture. The grants were made as part of the county’s new Food, Agriculture and Resilient Ecosystems program, or FARE.
“This program started in 2020 and 2021 as we were moving towards the renewal of Measure A,” Marin County Parks Director Max Korten told supervisors at their meeting on Tuesday. “We heard interest in moving from just agricultural land preservation to a focus on stewardship and connecting people with food, agriculture and community gardens.”
In 2021, Korten reported to county supervisors that a survey of 2,700 Marin residents found cratering support for the use of Measure A funds for securing agricultural easements in partnership with the Marin Agricultural Land Trust. Farmland preservation ranked last among 10 funding categories evaluated in the survey, with 12% of participants saying it was “not at all important.”
As a result, before supervisors asked Marin voters to reauthorize Measure A in 2022, they reduced the percentage of Measure A funds dedicated to the farmland preservation program from nearly 20% to 10%. Much of the money taken from the easement program went to the FARE program, which now gets 6% of Measure A’s revenue.
“Our biggest fear when we first started was that we wouldn’t get enough applications,” Korten said.
The parks department hired a new employee to help generate grant submissions. The county received 47 applications totaling more than $7 million.
“In the early conversations that Max and I had with stakeholders, we heard that in addition to giving out grants that technical assistance and warm-handed support was really important,” said Kevin Wright, the parks department’s manager of government affairs.
Korten said, “We were overwhelmed by the amount of really cool, amazing applications we got.”
The county’s website says the program “prioritizes participation of and investment in communities that experience intersecting challenges of racial, health, economic and other inequities.”
The website adds that the program “prioritizes projects that are co-designed by and benefit priority communities in the county.”
As examples of how projects can involve these priority communities, the website offers suggestions such as: “Develop and/or implement the project by or in close partnership with an organization based in a community of color”; “center traditional knowledge and direct involvement of indigenous groups in ecological restoration or other project design”; and “support local businesses owned by people of color.”
Several of the grants awarded in this round involved support for community gardens in underserved communities. Four went to organizations working in Marin City, the community with the highest percentage of African American residents in the county.
The Golden Gate Village Residents Council received a $40,000 grant to support a community garden at the public housing complex in Marin City. The Marin City Community Development Corp. received a $45,000 grant to create new garden spaces for participants in a program serving people recovering from mental illness. The Marin County Cooperation Team was awarded a $35,000 grant to partner with the Marin City Sausalito School District to produce food for the community. The Rise Up foundation received a $60,000 grant to fund a school garden coordinator and rainwater catchment in the school district.
Elsewhere in the county, San Rafael received a $35,000 grant to support the San Rafael Canal Community Garden in partnership with the Canal Community Garden Committee. The Canal area has the county’s highest concentration of Latino residents.
Next Generation Scholars, which is also active in the Canal area, was awarded a $50,000 grant to train students and their families in gardening. The grant will cover the cost of stipends for participants.
The Museum of the American Indian in Novato received a $15,000 grant to “protect and share indigenous traditional ecological knowledge.”
The University of California Cooperative Extension received $120,000 to expand the capacity of school and community gardens countywide, with a focus on priority communities.
Grants also went to support priority community members interested in farming or starting their own food retailing businesses.
Kitchen Table Advisors was awarded $159,000 to support new land lease opportunities between “underserved” specialty crop farmers and agricultural landowners in Marin.
The Agricultural Institute of Marin received $91,000 to support emerging food entrepreneurs, with an emphasis on Marin City, the Canal area and western Marin.
Several grants went to school groups to promote efforts to increase the amount of locally grown fruits and vegetables being served in school lunch programs.
Sustainable Marin Schools was awarded $197,965, the single largest grant, to support garden management and programming on Novato public school campuses to provide food security for students and their families.
Lagunitas Community School received $70,000 to expand an educational gardening program into a food garden whose produce will be used in the school cafeteria and senior lunches at the San Geronimo Valley Community Center.
The Marin County Office of Education received $75,000 to study the feasibility of buying more locally grown fruits and vegetables for school lunches.
“Numerous stakeholders are frustrated with the quality of food and the amount of food-related waste being generated at school sites throughout the county,” Ashley DeGrano, a health official at the county education office, told the Board of Supervisors.
DeGrano said the hope is that students will eat more and waste less fruits and vegetables if they are served fresher, higher quality, locally grown fare.
FARE isn’t the parks department’s only grants program focused on equity. In September, the department expects to announce $200,000 in grants through its Breathe/Respira program, which funds organizations to help connect underserved communities to parks.
