Efforts to grow West Virginia’s farm-based economy and to train veterans in new agricultural opportunities recently received a boost, thanks to a major grant from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation. The foundation provided a grant for $175,000 to the W.Va. National Guard Foundation Inc. The funding will be used to support and expand the West Virginia National Guard’s Patriot Guardens initiative and provide employment/transition and entrepreneurial development opportunities.
The Benedum funds will help launch a new two-year project called HARVEST (Heritage Agriculture & Rural Veterans Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Transition). The HARVEST Project will target and serve returning military members, veterans, Guard members, and other veterans transitioning into the workplace. This new program will provide training in basic and specialty agriculture production and in agri-business development opportunities.
The HARVEST Project will concentrate on veterans and Guard members in rural farming counties in West Virginia, but special emphasis and resources will be in regions where the National Guard is transitioning armories into agriculture transition/training hubs and in areas that have post-mine land use tracts viable for agricultural use, particularly Cabell, Clay, Jackson, Kanawha, Logan, Mason, McDowell, Nicholas and Raleigh counties.
The project will identify a diversified group of marketable specialty products that new and small veteran farmers can produce to earn a sustainable, living wage. It will aggregate and establish purchasing market opportunities, transactional activities and sustainable business models focused on linking veteran-grown products with key purchasers, including schools, colleges and prisons. The long-term goal is to be
another program to add to several other efforts underway across the state and to assist with economic self-sustainment, recovery and expand training opportunities.
The W.Va. National Guard Foundation, Inc. is excited to cooperate with other State, Federal and local organizations to help veterans and increase economic opportunities in the State.
For more information, contact the W.Va. National Guard Foundation, Inc. at 304-561-6412.
