Roots to Rise: Community Catalyst Grants

Project Funding Priorities: 

Healthy food retail: (funds used for refrigeration/shelving, store incentives, mobile market or farmers market staff or adding mobile market stops, training, signage, staff time to connect with local food sources or support SNAP applications, Fresh Bucks onboarding, etc.)

Urban farms/gardens: funds used for farming or gardening equipment and supplies, water hookups, farmer training, costs of transportation of local food to community sites, (added during workgroup discussion: supporting local growers in growing/refrigeration/transportation needs to supply local produce to pantries, etc.)

Funding Priorities

  • Low food access- utilizing asset mapping (proximity to grocery stores)

  • Low income communities

  • BIPOC communities

  • Immigrant, refugee or asylee communities

  • High risk communities (public heath) 

  • Growers: BIPOC, Veterans, Women & Gender Non Confirming

Round 1: Food Retailers

Application Details — CLOSED

Round 1 Grant recipients:

  • Mobile Community Grocery

  • Bodi Buzz Urban Farm

  • Helpings of Hope

  • Cleo’s Bodega

  • Garcia’s Gardens

  • Masagana Farm

  • Helping Hands Norwood Garden

  • Harmonie Hearts Community Service

  • Mae’s Paige Garden

100% of on-time and complete applications received funding.

Round 2: Non-profit growers

Application details- Round 2: CLOSED

  • Mayors Community Garden

  • Mother Loves Garden Inc

  • People’s Healing Collective

  • Q Plot

  • Rooted Legacy

  • Seeds N Spades

Grower Micro-Grants recipients

  • Aspire Higher Foundation Forest

  • Field Memory Lab

  • Harmoine Hearts Community Service

  • Irvington Community Gardens

  • Lawrence Community Gardens

  • Mad Farmers Indy

  • Mae’s Paige Garden

Round 3: Water Access/ Cistern program

Applications details Round 3 Cistern CLOSED : Many small-scale farmers across Indianapolis and Marion County struggle to get sufficient water to their growing sites. Cistern installation offers a more affordable path to a reliable water supply — enabling more local growers to participate in the food ecosystem and improving fresh food access for residents across the city.

 

Round 2 and 3 of Community Catalyst Grants supported by funding from: