(Atlantic) The Atlantic City Council approved the Food Pantry’s application for the CDBG COVID-19 Program.
The food pantry’s request is $100,000 in grant funding from the Iowa Economic Development Association. This grant will help the food pantry buy food in 2022 and early 2023. The $23,000 received from the Scrooge Contest will serve as the grant’s match.
Based on the Food Pantry Personnel survey, 100-percent of the recipients qualify as low-to-moderate income. Additionally, based on the food pantry’s sign-in sheets, an average of 86-percent of the recipients live in Atlantic.
On November 17, Kristin Stokes, Community Development Specialist with Southwest Iowa Planning Council, presented a CDBG-CV Food Pantry Grant to the Atlantic City Council. The Atlantic Food Pantry now serves more than twice the number of people following the pandemic, tripling the number of expenses to operate the pantry.
The Southwest Iowa Planning Council requested that the city be the applicant for a one-time $100,000 grant in 2023. The Food Pantry would be a sub-recipient of the grant funding.
The Atlantic Food Pantry, serving the community for the past 40-years, consists of 30-volunteers. Stokes noted the demand for resources has gradually risen about 17-percent annually between 2015 and 2019.
The approval followed a public hearing. Stokes covered nine points:
- How the need for the proposed activities was identified
- How the proposed activities will be funded
- Date of application submitted
- Request amount of federal funds
- Estimated portion of federal funds that will benefit persons of low-to-moderate income families
- Where the proposed activities will be conducted
- Plans to minimize displacement of persons and businesses as a result of the funded activity
- Plans to assist persons actually displaced
- The nature of the proposed activities
