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Mon, 01/25/2021 - 1:15pm
Kittery Land Trust intern Kate Loughlin delivers fresh produce from the Giving Garden to the Kittery School Nutrition Program. (Photo by Jen Clifford/KLT)
Maine Farmland Trust, in Belfast, is one of eight nonprofit organizations across the state to share a $250,000 grant from Maine Community Foundation’s Maine Land Protection grant program.
Launched last year, the program provides grants for land acquisition or land conservation easement projects.
The Trust will use its $20,000 share to purchase an easement on the new home of Liberation Farms, a cooperative farm led by the Somali Bantu Community Association and their members, according to Maine CF, in a news release.
Owners of New Roots Cooperative Farm in Lewiston have been awarded two grants aimed at tackling systemic racism in Maine, bringing the farmers closer to their goal of owning the land they farm.
New Roots is a Somali Bantu-led cooperative farm that s been in operation since 2016, and sells produce both wholesale and retail to the Lewiston-Auburn community and in southern Maine. A $50,000 grant from the Elmina B. Sewall Foundation to the farm is part of the foundation’s emergency Twin Pandemic grant program, aimed at the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 and systemic racism have had on Maine’s communities, particularly Black, Indigenous and People of Color.