U.S. Department of Agriculture area director Joseph Diego discussed grant opportunities with Northern Islands Mayor Jerome Aldan and Saipan and Northern Islands Municipal Council chair Tonie Tudela during a meeting last Thursday.<\/p>\n
The Community Facility, Rural Business Enterprise, and Community Connect grants were some of the topics discussed.<\/p>\n
Diego called these grants some of the \u201clow-hanging fruit\u201d ready available for the CNMI, describing the CNMI\u2019s high unemployment rate and its designation as a Substantially Underserved Trust Area, or SUTA, as a \u201chigh advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
SUTA-designation, for example, can drop loan rates from 3.75 percent to 2 percent, according to Diego.<\/p>\n
Chartering a vessel to the island of Pagan was discussed through the Community Facility grant, as part of a project for the island\u2019s resettlement.<\/p>\n
Tudela also took interest in the business enterprise grants to promote culture and local crafts in the CNMI.<\/p>\n
A \u201cthree-pronged\u201d approach was discussed with this grant of $50,000: a general conference to have those interested sign up for a local crafts apprenticeship; choosing those who would most like share these crafts with the community; and then documenting and sharing the work done.<\/p>\n
Crafts discussed were blacksmithing, making coconut graters, jewelry and braid making with corals and natural items, learning herbal remedies, bull-cart and canoe making, among other things.<\/p>\n
The Community Connect Grant, which aims to bring broadband services to rural communities, was also discussed to bring Internet-use to Pagan.<\/p>\n
This grant could be used to construct or acquire facilities for broadband service and could be used to build a community center.<\/p>\n
According to USDA, the Community Facility Grant aims to provide healthcare, public safety or public and community services to small and low-income communities.<\/p>\n
The grant targets small and emerging businesses in rural areas and can be used to acquire or develop land, or build, convert, or renovate infrastructure; the capitalization of revolving loan funds including funds that will make loans for startups and working capital; training and technical assistance; distance adult learning for job training and advancement; rural transportation improvement; and project planning, according to USDA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. Department of Agriculture area director Joseph Diego discussed grant opportunities with Northern Islands Mayor…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[56,26,1266,117],"class_list":["post-190314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-business-3","tag-cnmi","tag-ni","tag-usda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190314\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}