[T]he [Andrew W. Mellon Foundation] has awarded Bennington College $1 million for a three-year effort to address hunger problems in Bennington County.
https://mellon.org/
The Center for the Advancement of Public Action at the private liberal arts college will work with Southwestern Vermont Health Care and Medical Center, Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union, and Greater Bennington Interfaith Community Services to develop programs that might be used in other communities as well, the school said in a prepared release.
Bennington County, in Vermont’s southwestern corner, faces many of the problems commonly seen in many rural communities in the U.S., including low wages, a lack of reliable public transportation, isolation and substance abuse.
Fourteen percent of the county’s population lives at or below the poverty line, according to Hunger Free Vermont, which reports that 85 percent of the county’s public school students qualify for free or reduced-price school lunches. The statewide poverty rate is just under 12 percent, according to the U.S. Census.
Bennington County is one of seven of Vermont’s 14 counties where the population has declined since 2010.
Hunger Free Vermont says Vermont Foodbank and its partners provide food to 12.6% of all Bennington County residents.
“This project will give our students a rich educational opportunity: taking on a complex and urgent real-world problem, blending academics and work experiences, looking at immediate needs and upstream causes,” Provost and Dean Isabel Roche, who will become interim president of the college in July, said in a statement.
“It will allow us to work closely with partners who have been doing important work on the front lines of this issue. I am confident that, together, we can develop resources that will be useful to other rural communities facing the issue of food insecurity.”
The college said it has a longstanding relationship with the Mellon Foundation, including a just-completed three-year grant to enhance the quality and effectiveness of the college’s curricular and advising models.
