Rainier Beach residents work to build a community P-Patch with the help of an $11,700 SNAP grant.

Citizens use SNAP Grant to cultivate change
throughout neighborhood

The Rainier Beach Community Empowerment Coalition received a $11,700 grant from NW Insurance Council's Strong Neighborhood Action Program to develop a large community P-Patch. 

Low income residents are working to build the gardens and grow food for their families.  They also will sell excess produce at local farmers markets to provide some household income.

The community coalition expects the project to be completed by this coming August in time for Fall planting.

After a successful 12-year run, SNAP is entering its final year of approving grants.  SNAP Grants awarded in 2008 will be completed in 2009 and 2010.  Beginning in 2009, the council’s focus is shifting to the Community Grants program that serves the entire three-state region.

NW Insurance Council’s member companies created SNAP in 1996 as a loss prevention program to reduce crime and strengthen communities in federally designated low-income areas of Seattle and Tacoma.  To date, NW Insurance Council has awarded $875,000 in SNAP Grants for community-initiated projects designed to create safer, stronger neighborhoods. 

SNAP is a public/private partnership that combines the efforts of the insurance industry, local and federal government agencies and communities.  It’s goals are to increase safety and security, and to improve the quality of life in these neighborhoods.

SNAP applies the innovative and successful “broken windows” theory of crime prevention, which recognizes that crime and decay promote more of the same and healthy communities need things like safe parks for children to play, tree-lined streets for families to walk and gardens in urban areas where residents can provide their families with a nutritional diet.