Blooming Prairie Foundation Announces 2005 Grant Awards

Blooming Prairie Foundation announced in June the recipients of its 2005 grant awards. This is the first year that the foundation has awarded grants, which totaled over $250,000. The following eight grant recipients were chosen:

Midwest Food Connection: The foundation awarded $60,000 for Natural Foods—Teaching the Next Generation. This breakthrough project works with schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area to educate kids about organic foods and healthy living.

Community Conservation: When Community Conservation first published “Organic Dairy Farming” in 1995, the book quickly became a landmark in organic dairy farming. The foundation has awarded $14,388 to help rewrite and update this book through the Organic Dairy Farming Education Project

NCB Development Corporation: NCBDC will use the $50,000 awarded by the foundation for its Food Co-op 500 Program, which will help cooperatives grow and flourish across the United States. (See report in CG #119, July–August 2005.)

Northcountry Cooperative Foundation: The foundation awarded $50,000 for Northcountry’s innovative Creative Debt & Equity Development Financing Project. The money will help fund its program to bolster local cooperatives’ financial wherewithal and help ensure that cooperatives can remain a vibrant part of our commercial landscape.

Association of Cooperative Educators: The foundation granted $5,000 to the Association of Cooperative Educators to help students gain more knowledge about cooperative matters over the next year.

Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation: Blooming Prairie Foundation awarded $15,000 for matching funds in Twin Pines’ forward-looking CCF Program. The CCF Program helps local food cooperatives establish foundations to do more and better work in the communities they serve.

Land Stewardship Project: The foundation granted $20,647 to help this Minnesota-based group continue to help serve local and organic farmers.

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy: IATP received $35,000 for its important policy work at all levels to promote a sustainable food system, organic agriculture, and cooperative economic development.

Blooming Prairie Foundation was established with money generated principally from the sale of Blooming Prairie Cooperative Warehouse, a distributor of natural and organic products serving cooperatives, retailers, and buying clubs in a 12-state Midwestern area. For over two decades, Blooming Prairie brought knowledge and products to a growing population that genuinely values personal health as well as the ecological health of our planet.

To honor the history and success of Blooming Prairie Cooperative Warehouse, Blooming Prairie Foundation was organized as a 501©(3) organization with a mission to:

• further the health of the people and the planet, and the cooperative business model, by supporting development, research, and educational efforts in the organic industry and the cooperative community;

• encourage, support, promote, and enhance the development of organic and natural products;

• encourage, support, promote, and enhance cooperative development in the natural products industry.

The foundation will make grants annually to charitable, tax-exempt 501©(3) organizations that are working in the areas of development, research, education, promotion, and enhancement of organic and natural products, and also within that universe, organizations that are working to promote and enhance the cooperative business model.

The deadline for the 2006 grant cycle is February 1, 2006. Contact: info@bloomingprairie.org.