The Land Connection was privileged to receive 2 grants from the Community Foundation of East Central Illinois (CFECI) to be used towards programming and professional development in 2020.
The first award was through their Nonprofit Capacity Building Microgrant program. These grants are jointly funded by the Lumpkin Family Foundation and CFECI. TLC was awarded funding to send their Executive Director, Jacquelyn Evers, and Board President, Joe Wetzel, to the 2020 BoardSource Leadership Forum in St. Louis, MO this May. The forum is an opportunity for The Land Connection’s leadership to learn, collaborate, and get inspired!
Our second award from CFECI was part of their Community Commitment Grant program. This year, CFECI received 66 applications for funding and TLC was selected from the group! TLC received $918 to purchase two iPads for use at the Champaign Farmers Market. Many of our followers know that one of the core values of the Champaign Farmers Market is to ensure our entire community has access to healthy, locally grown and produced foods. One way we accomplish this work is by growing the food budgets of individuals and families on supplemental nutrition benefit programs like SNAP, WIC, and the Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program. In 2019, TLC distributed over $20,000 in additional dollars to these households. What we have found as an organization is the accounting and data collection related to our incentive program is often sprinkled with mistakes due to the speediness of a transaction, multi-tasking, poor handwriting, etc. TLC found a local mobile application developer willing to volunteer their time to the creation of an application for us to use at the Market that will eliminate the errors in our accounting and data collection. CFECI’s support for two iPads will give us the medium to use that new app. We anticipate this addition to our Market will help us make decisions about our incentive programming that reflect the needs of our community.
From our staff and Board of Directors, THANK YOU Community Foundation of East Central Illinois!
Learn more about the Community Foundation and check out the other grant recipients!
