Related In mid-January, Gene Gelgelu made a down payment on a building along Snelling Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota, accomplishing two goals: combating gentrification in the increasingly popular Hamline-Midway neighborhood and laying the first steps of what will become the Little Africa Market and Food Business Incubator. Gelgelu had been dreaming of starting the incubator for some time, but financing was a challenge until just recently.
Gelgelu’s African Economic Development Solutions (AEDS) a nonprofit dedicated to building wealth in African immigrant communities is one of the 20 organizations from around the country that received a total of $3 million in grant money from the Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) in December. Earmarked from the 2014 Farm Bill and executed in partnership with the Reinvestment Fund, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program is designed to support projects that improve access to fresh and healthy food through retail.