SOUTH THOMASTON, Maine — The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded a Rural Business Development grant worth nearly $87,000 to the Island Institute, a Rockland-based nonprofit, on Tuesday. The funds aim to help grow the local businesses in Maine’s island and coastal towns.
"Where this money is coming from is really important to me," Rhiannon Hampson, the USDA Rural Development director for Maine, said Tuesday. "I want people to understand that the federal government is not this sort of vacuum, taking money out of our communities."
The Island Institute, which is receiving the grant, plans to use the money to complement its Tom Glenn Community Impact Fund—used to help prop up local businesses with small loans and technical assistance.
Kim Hamilton, the organization’s president, says the infusion of federal funds will allow the nonprofit to meet a key goal.
"It's both supporting the individual businesses, but also looking at the broader ecosystem of support that these communities need."
Area business owners hope the loans from the Island Institute, provided for in part by the USDA grant, will improve day-to-day operations. Steve Zimmerman, who serves as Chief Operating Officer of Mook Sea Farms in Walpole, says the new stimulus will mean his business can "become more efficient and more competitive."
With all the excitement behind the grant, the impact it will truly have, given the challenges confronting area businesses—chief among them a lack of affordable housing—is unknown. But to Hampson, with the USDA, that’s part of the equation. "Prosperity is, I think, being able to step into the unknown and then really inhabit it and then thrive."