Virginia University Women’s Business Center will be the only
such center in the state and the first to open its doors in three
years. Our center provides services to entrepreneurs of any
gender at all stages of business development. We are excited
to play a part in transforming the state’s economy through the
growth of small businesses.”
Benedum Grant Awarded to the
Patriot Guardens Initiative
Efforts to grow West Virginia’s farm-based economy and
train veterans in new agricultural opportunities recently received
a boost, thanks to a major grant from the Claude Worthing-
ton Benedum Foundation. The foundation provided a grant
for $175,000 to the West Virginia National Guard Founda-
tion Inc. The funding will be used to support and expand the
Assistant Secretary of Defense Todd Weiler discusses
the Patriot Guardens program during a visit to
Mountaineer ChalleNGe Academy at Camp Dawson.
West Virginia National Guard’s Patriot Guardens initiative and
provide employment/transition and entrepreneurial develop-
ment opportunities.
The Benedum funds will help launch a new two-year project
called HARVEST, which stands for Heritage Agriculture &
Rural Veterans Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Transition.
The HARVEST Project will target and serve returning military
members, veterans, Guard members and other veterans tran-
sitioning into the workplace. This new program will provide
training in basic and specialty agriculture production and in
agri-business development opportunities.
The HARVEST Project will concentrate on veterans and
Guard members in rural farming counties in West Virginia,
but special emphasis and resources will be in regions where
the National Guard is transitioning armories into agriculture
transition/training hubs and in areas that have post-mine land
use tracts viable for agricultural use, particularly Cabell, Clay,
Jackson, Kanawha, Logan, Mason, McDowell, Nicholas and
Raleigh counties. The project will identify a diversified group
of marketable specialty products that new and small veteran
farmers can produce to earn a sustainable living wage. It will
aggregate and establish purchasing market opportunities, trans-
actional activities and sustainable business models focused on
linking veteran-grown products with key purchasers, includ-
ing schools, colleges and prisons. The long-term goal is to be
another program to add to several other efforts underway
across the state and to assist with economic self-sustainment
and recovery and expand training opportunities.
2017
#WVBROWNFIELDS
CONFERENCE
READY. SET.
REDEVELOP.
Featuring the Central Appalachian Regional Brownfields Summit
September 12-14 at the Erickson Alumni Center in Morgantown, WV
For more information, visit www.wvbrownfields.org.
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