This 100-year old former Vermont dairy barn will soon be a school for at-risk students.

Construction has begun on Laraway’s new home.  Looking at this hundred-year-old dairy barn jacked up in the air on the occasion of last month’s ground-breaking, it occurred to me that this labor of renovation and rejuvenation foreshadows what happens to the at-risk kids who come to Laraway Youth and Family Services in Johnson, Vermont. Read more »

USDA and local officials in front of a rendering of the newly designed learning facility.

The Miner County Development Corporation (MCDC) in Howard, South Dakota, broke ground recently on a new learning center complex with the assistance from the American Recovery Reinvestment Act (Recovery Act).  Funding was provided through a USDA Rural Development Business & Industry Loan in the amount of $3.2 million guaranteed through Miner County Bank in Howard. Read more »

Judith Canales, Administrator of USDA Rural Development Business Programs, Curt Wiley, Chief of Staff, and Pandor Hadjy, Deputy Administrator, visited Atlanta recently to meet with State Directors, Business Program Directors, and Business loan specialists from 15 states and two territories in an effort to identify ways to streamline business and industry loan processing. This was one of four regional meetings around the nation.

“We know rural businesses need these funds,” said Shirley Sherrod, state director in Georgia. “We are encouraging lenders to bring us good loans and encouraging businesses in need of funds to approach lenders. We absolutely can help with the credit issues out there that many businesses are complaining about. We have capital. We want to put to work in rural Georgia.”

Business and Industry guaranteed loans are available to private businesses to create or expand businesses in qualifying rural areas of the United States. The goal is to create and save jobs in rural areas. Loans are made through local lenders with a guarantee of up to 90 percent of the loan. A substantial amount of business guarantee funding is available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but it must be obligated for projects by the end of the current Federal  fiscal year.

“Our goal is to obligate 70 percent of Recovery Act funds by April 16,” Canales said. “Some states have exceeded that but most have not. We need to know where problems are so we can streamline processing. We must get these funds obligated before midnight on September 30, 2010.”

Represented at the Atlanta meeting were the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virgin Islands and Minnesota.

Curt Wiley, USDA Business Programs Chief of Staff, Georgia Rural Development State Director Shirley Sherrod (center) and Business Programs Administrator Judith Canales address a business program regional meeting in Atlanta