January 27, 2022
Dear editor;
After looking at the application for American Rescue Plan Act funds in the respective portal on the Kane County Board website, I believe County leaders made a tremendous oversight by excluding community organizations that help grow food, teach people to grow food, and provide organic and healthy meals to the most vulnerable persons.
Kane County has organizations working on the ground, close to the residents who most need these services, education, and the provision of healthy and local foods.
This includes my organization, The Just Food Initiative of the Fox Valley, and other local nonprofits that promote nutritious meals made from organic gardens right here in our area of the Fox Valley.
Out of media visibility, but critical, are our local, family, small-food, farmers who grow this food and often donate their extra produce to avoid food waste. Our farmers’ markets, which are a part of our infrastructure, are expensive to operate, expensive for vendors, and had record attendance during COVID because they were safe locations to purchase healthy food.
All of us were excluded from the County’s first distribution of American Rescue Plan Act funds. These funds are critical to smaller, financially-struggling organizations in the County and are needed now.
How soon can the County’s American Rescue Plan Act Committee and the Kane County Board remove the unjust exclusions to the application process and portal and address the entire food community?
All of our work meets the requirements of the American Rescue Plan Act, which is to respond to the public health emergency, or its negative economic impacts, including assistance to households, small businesses, and nonprofits.
We are critical to the health, safety, and welfare, of Kane County residents and deserve to be considered for these funds immediately.
M. Grace Grzanek, founder and executive director of The Just Food Initiative of the Fox Valley, Batavia