Wyoming nonprofit Feeding Laramie Valley lost a grant from the Wyoming Department of Health (WDH) to install a commercial kitchen in its facility. The $116,915 grant was a federal COVID-19 health disparity grant. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services gave the grant to WDH, which then distributed it. This is part of the $40 million WDH lost in federal grants. The grant was specifically aimed at improving Feeding Laramie Valley’s building infrastructure to include a ventilation system, cooktop and dishwasher.
Feeding Laramie Valley is a grassroots non-profit that helps over a thousand individuals across Albany County fight food insecurity. A resource the non-profit says is necessary. It points to data shared by Feeding America saying those in Albany County face high rates of food insecurity. For local children those rates are four percent above the national average.
Gayle Woodsum, the founder and director of Feeding Laramie Valley, has over forty years of experience working in nonprofits. She said she had never before had a grant revoked without warning.
“I received an email at about 6:45 in the evening, and that next morning at 6:00 AM we were scheduled to have construction workers come in and start demolition,” said Woodsum. Woodsum explained the commercial kitchen was going to directly help residents.
“We could expand our summer lunch program to reach more rural children. [It] was going to allow us to expand our pilot project on having a food hub here. We were gonna have more jobs available to offer to the community, and also, we were gonna be able to rent it out as a commercial kitchen,” Woodsum said.
Woodsum stressed that losing the grant did not just affect the nonprofit and those it serves.
“When our funding was pulled, we had contracts with at least half a dozen other businesses in town,” she said.
Woodsum said running a nonprofit has “always been a struggle. It’s always nerve-wracking.”.
Yet she believes the federal cuts and new restrictions are making it even harder for nonprofits.
This isn’t the first time Feeding Laramie Valley has been affected by the new Trump administration. One of the executive orders signed by Pres. Trump on his first day in office led to directives to not use certain words like inclusive in mission statements, grants and contracts if they wanted to receive funding from the federal government.
“ I have to think carefully about that because we have to make sure we're not compromising who we are and what we do in order to keep a certain funding source or to continue to exist at all,” said Woodsum.
Woodsum said having to be careful with certain words makes her feel as though they are doing something wrong.
“ That makes me angry on behalf of all the people who work here, who volunteer here, who intern here, who come and give their heart and soul because they simply want to help people in the world and to be a good person. And they feel like they're being punished and that's really hard to grapple with” said Woodsum when discussing the impact on those working at the nonprofit.
Feeding Laramie Valley uses federal grants to help them with large beneficial projects like the grant they just lost.
“For us, that's an enormous amount of money on top of our everyday operating expenses, and it's just unlikely that we're gonna get donations that meet that and continue to feed people while we're getting there,” said Woodsum. “We look to federal funding for that type of launch, and then we go on from there without federal funding”.
Woodsum said those working in nonprofits and charities can already face higher rates of compassion fatigue.
“It's really hard to see the people who are utilizing our services every day, every week, all year round. How frightened they are,” said Woodsum. “We know this works. We know that with loving kindness and generosity and understanding, that if you provide for people's needs, they give back and everything rolls forward as it should.”
As Feeding Laramie Valley moves forward with these setbacks Woodsum said not feeding people is not an option.
“We have to continue to partner and collaborate and build trust and be brave,” said Woodsum.
The nonprofit is continuing to search for alternative sources of funding.
