Clorox Seeds Growth of Urban Farms
By Nichelle Rachal
The Clorox Company Foundation is growing a new philanthropic focus area: urban farms.
This is an exciting new aspect of our company’s commitment to Health and Wellness. We believe that good nutrition is at the root of basic health. Lack of access to nourishing, quality food feeds many of the health and wellness concerns that affect contemporary society.
While health and wellness start with the food people consume, tens of millions of Americans lack reliable access to food.
According to Feeding America, 42.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households in 2015. That includes 29.1 million adults and 13.1 million children. And people facing food insecurity usually have a harder time finding healthy food options.
The Clorox Company Foundation believes urban farming can help address food insecurity by growing local, nutritious food for all.
Expanding our focus
Up to now, The Clorox Company Foundation has had a strategic focus on K-12 education and cultural arts programs, primarily in Oakland, California, home to our global headquarters.
Now we’re rounding out our existing grantee portfolio to help underserved communities in Oakland and beyond gain access to healthy food and overcome some of the barriers associated with eating good, nutritious food. Some of those barriers include things like familiarity with different vegetables, affordability and recipe knowledge.
We have committed $1 million over four years to urban farming.
To support this new focus area, The Clorox Company Foundation has awarded six grants to urban farms in Oakland, the Atlanta area and in Northwest Arkansas. These regions have some of the highest household food insecurity rates in the country, including more than 19 percent of households in Arkansas — the second highest of any state in the U.S.
These are the six organizations to win inaugural urban farming grants from The Clorox Company Foundation: