An innovative community development credit union that serves thegreater New Orleans area is one of 12 financial institutions toreceive federal grant money to help improve the quality of food intheir areas.

The 74,000-member ASI Federal Credit Union has received a $3million grant to help entrepreneurs seeking to bring healthier foodto low-income neighborhoods.

These areas are known as “food deserts” and helping to shrinkthem is a goal of the Healthy Food Finance Initiative, an effort ofU.S. Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.

The other institutions to receive money, mostly communitydevelopment loan funds, are located in West Virginia, Virginia,Georgia, California, Maine, Illinois, South Carolina, Pennsylvaniaand Massachusetts.

“The awards being provided to CDFIs through this initiative willenable CDFIs to enhance their financing solutions to deliverhealthy food options to food deserts nationwide,” said CDFIDirector Donna J. Gambrell. “The 12 awardees this year have animpressive combination of experience in working in underservedareas and the enthusiasm to expand their expertise to improve thequality of life for residents of low-income communities across thecountry.”

The effort is part of something called the Healthy FoodFinancing Initiative. The HFFI is an interagency initiativeinvolving the Department of the Treasury, the Department ofAgriculture, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

HFFI represents the federal government's first coordinated stepto eliminate food deserts by promoting a wide range ofinterventions that expand the supply of and demand for nutritiousfoods, including increasing the distribution of agriculturalproducts; developing and equipping grocery stores; andstrengthening producer-to-consumer relationships, the fundsaid.

ASI CEO Mignhon Tourné observed that the CU has already had ahistory of making these sorts of loans, and ASI Senior Vice President SarahTaylor reported that the CU has talks in the works with some areagrocers.

“We have already had several conversations with grocers andrestaurateurs in the Bywater and Marigny neighborhoods of the NinthWard who need financing to start or expand their businesses,” shesaid. “These monies from the CDFI fund will help us make a realimpact in those communities, creating new jobs and providinghealthy and affordable food alternatives,” Taylor said.

Tourné acknowledged a certain irony that a city like NewOrleans, which is famous for having delicious food, would have fooddeserts, but she made the point that the deserts had existed priorto Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

“We have parts of our areas we serve that have never had accessto sources of simple, plain, wholesome food,” Tourné said. “Theydidn't have it before Katrina, and they sure don't have itnow.”

Tourné cited different reasons the desertsexisted. In some cases, people in an area lack the transportationto be able to make the trips to pick up food from wealthier areasthat have grocery stores and supermarkets, she explained.

Money to purchase food or launch a grocery store in an area thatdoesn't have one is almost always a problem as well, she added.

What is generally not a problem, she said, are people notknowing what to do with fresh food, how to cook and prepare it. Insome other cities, new grocery stores or other outlets for freshfood have had to overcome residents reservations about it or lackof knowledge about how to cook it.

But, given that was New Orleans, Tourné said, she felt confidentpeople would know what to do with it. “If someone showed up inthese areas with fresh tomatoes and okra and gave it to people, Ithink they would take them home and make gumbo,” she said.

Some of the food related businesses that ASI has already helpedfund in depressed New Orleans neighborhoods include the first foodcooperative in the city's upper Ninth Ward, an area that had agrocery store prior to Hurricane Katrina but lost it in thestorm.

The credit union has also helped fund a restaurant calledFaroush that offers Mediterranean cuisine in an emerging commercialarea that had long been economically distressed.

Tourné said the CU was willing to work with a relatively widespectrum of borrowers who might have a piece of the overall foodmarket.

Examples include entrepreneurs who want to get a farmers marketstarted as well as farmers who might need a loan to start a foodstand at a farmers market or need to purchase transportation toenable them to bring their produce to the markets.

Grocers could get loans to start grocery stores or to expandtheir operations, for example to purchase the equipment they wouldneed to be able to store and sell more fresh dairy, meat orseafood. The CU will be willing to help other restaurants as well,Tourné said.

And she added that the scope of restaurants is broad, includingeverything from juice bars and casual dining places that mightfeature fresh food from local sources when possible to foodtrucks.

“We have the food culture here,” Tourné said, “what we need todo is to help people get access to fresh food and we are thrilledto be able to be part of that.”