The USDA-led Rural Companions Community expands to 17 extra communities to assist rural folks create new and lasting financial alternatives
WASHINGTON, Nov. 3, 2022 – U.S. Division of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack and Ambassador Susan Rice, White Home Home Coverage Advisor, in the present day introduced the growth of the Rural Partners Network (RPN) to 17 communities in 4 extra states and Puerto Rico. RPN is an all-of-government program that companions with rural folks to entry assets and funding to create native jobs, construct infrastructure, and help long-term financial stability on their very own phrases.
Immediately’s announcement is a part of President Biden’s dedication to make sure all rural communities can profit from federal assets, together with historic funding supplied by the American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Legislation and Inflation Discount Act.
Vilsack and Ambassador Rice are in Wisconsin to fulfill with folks, companies and organizations who will profit from RPN’s growth. RPN can be launching in communities in Alaska, Nevada, West Virginia and Puerto Rico. Vilsack joined White Home Coordinator Mitch Landrieu final week in North Carolina to announce the RPN communities there.
“The Biden-Harris Administration is dedicated to making sure that individuals in rural communities have each alternative to succeed – and that they’ll discover these alternatives proper at dwelling in rural America,” Vilsack stated. “Rural folks make up America’s spirit and character and supply the on a regular basis necessities our nation is dependent upon. We all know that when rural folks thrive, America thrives. By increasing the Rural Partners Network, we will help these vital however usually neglected communities obtain their justifiable share of presidency assets to maintain rural folks and economies ready for the longer term.”
“Rural America is filled with alternatives however these important communities don’t all the time have a option to navigate federal businesses or entry the assets of the federal government,” stated Home Coverage Advisor Susan Rice. “The Rural Companions Community is bringing federal workers on to rural communities to make sure native leaders have entry to federal assets as they construct sturdy and vibrant economies.”
RPN helps set up group networks in rural areas the place native leaders and residents collaborate with civic and enterprise organizations, nonprofits, service suppliers, growth businesses and others to create new alternatives and construct on the range of a area’s inhabitants and views.
RPN is increasing to the next group networks:
- In Alaska: Southeast Alaska; and Western Alaska Native Communities together with areas of Bering Strait, Kashunamiut, Decrease Kuskokwim and Decrease Yukon.
- In Nevada: Southern Nevada Group Community together with Nye and Esmeralda counties; Sierra Area Group Community together with Lyon and Mineral counties; Moapa Valley Group Community together with Clark County and cities of Moapa, Moapa Valley, Overton, Logandale, and Bunkerville; Nevada 95-80 Regional Growth Group Community together with Humboldt and Pershing counties; and Southern Clark County Group Community together with Clark County and cities of Laughlin, Searchlight, Cal-Nev-Ari.
- In North Carolina: Robeson, Bladen, Columbus County Group Community; Glow Home Basis Group Community together with Randolph County; Wilson, Edgecombe, Nash, and Johnston Group Community; Halifax-Northampton Group Community; and Albemarle-Roanoke Group Community together with Bertie, Martin, Tyrrell, and Washington counties.
- In Puerto Rico: Southwest Puerto Rico together with the municipalities of Mayaguez, Maricao and Guanica; Central Puerto Rico-Mountainous Area together with the municipalities of Utuado, Jayuya, Ciales, Orcovis, Villalba, Ponce, Adjuntas, Barranquitas and Coamo; and Roosevelt Roads Group Community together with Fajardo, Cieba, and Naguabo and to incorporate El Yunque Nationwide Forest.
- In West Virginia: Southern West Virginia Group Community together with Mingo, Wayne, Lincoln, Boone, Logan, Wyoming, McDowell, Mercer, Monroe, Raleigh, Summers, Fayette counties; and West Virginia Pioneer Group Community together with Braxton, Calhoun, Clay, Gilmer, Nicholas, Roane, Webster, and Wirt counties.
- In Wisconsin: Northern Wisconsin Group Community together with Ashland, Iron and Worth counties; Better Menominee Group Community together with Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin and Menominee County; Forest County Group Community; Northwestern Wisconsin Group Community together with Eau Claire, Dunn, Clark, Buffalo, Pepin, and Chippewa counties; and Adams County Visionary Group Community.
Background: Rural Companions Community
The Rural Companions Community launched in April 2022 in 14 communities in Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Mexico and Native American communities in Arizona.
Group networks inside these states and people introduced in the present day will obtain on-the-ground help from full-time federal workers members assigned to supply technical help tailor-made to the group’s distinctive wants and aims. These group liaisons reside and work within the rural communities they serve, permitting them to develop partnerships with native leaders to advertise progress and prosperity for rural households and native communities.
These federal workers members will assist rural communities navigate federal applications, construct relationships and establish community-driven options, and develop profitable purposes for funding.
Moreover, RPN contains an-all -of authorities technique supported by greater than 20 federal agencies and commissions, working intently along with one another, rural communities, and current applications and insurance policies. Communities additionally profit from coordination by means of different federal efforts such because the Interagency Working Group on Coal and Power Plant Communities and Economic Revitalization and President Biden’s Justice40 Initiative. The Rural Prosperity Interagency Coverage Council, co-led by the White Home Home Coverage Council and USDA, advises the RPN program and escalates classes discovered by means of RPN for coverage consideration. A workforce of Rural Desk Officers representing every collaborating federal company or regional fee helps the RPN program and the chosen group networks.
To ship on the promise to make federal assets extra available to underserved communities throughout rural America, the Biden-Harris Administration is looking for extra federal funding with a purpose to develop the Rural Partners Network to extra locations in fiscal yr 2023.
Details about the Rural Companions Community is accessible on-line at Rural.gov.
USDA touches the lives of all Individuals every day in so many optimistic methods. Within the Biden-Harris Administration, USDA is reworking America’s meals system with a larger concentrate on extra resilient native and regional meals manufacturing, fairer markets for all producers, guaranteeing entry to protected, wholesome and nutritious meals in all communities, constructing new markets and streams of earnings for farmers and producers utilizing climate-smart meals and forestry practices, making historic investments in infrastructure and clean-energy capabilities in rural America, and committing to fairness throughout the Division by eradicating systemic boundaries and constructing a workforce extra consultant of America. To be taught extra, go to www.usda.gov.
Below the Biden-Harris Administration, Rural Growth offers loans and grants to assist develop financial alternatives, create jobs and enhance the standard of life for thousands and thousands of Individuals in rural areas. This help helps infrastructure enhancements; enterprise growth; housing; group services reminiscent of faculties, public security and well being care; and high-speed web entry in rural, tribal and high-poverty areas. For extra info, go to www.rd.usda.gov.
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