https://www.rd.usda.gov/newsroom/success-stories/gullah-co-op-growing-food-preserving-culture

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St. Helena Island, South Carolina, is home to the Black-owned Gullah Farmers’ Cooperative. The co-op is named after the Gullah Geechee, an African American community known for its careful preservation of African cultural heritage in South Carolina and Georgia.  

“This project started 12 years ago with the goal of revitalizing agriculture in this community,” said York Glover, secretary of the Gullah Farmers’ Cooperative board of directors. “Small farmers had stopped producing because they couldn’t find a market outlet. Our co-op provides local farmers that service.” 

The co-op’s members operate farms in the rural counties of the South Carolina lowcountry. To continue to expand and develop new customers and buyers, the co-op needed a facility to process their produce. With the help of Beaufort County, the co-op identified a vacant building that needed to be renovated and brought up to current building codes. That’s where USDA Rural Development (RD) stepped in. RD’s Community Facilities Loans and Grants and Rural Business Development Grant helped the co-op fund and open their new 10,000-square-foot processing facility. 

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Read more in the link above!