KAKE, ALASKA - I returned to the Northwest in 2008 after 30 years on the east coast.  A rube of sorts, I'll confess I had no idea what a "geoduck" is..

A hybrid car?  A waterproof shoe?  A GPS system that quacks? Wrong, wrong and wrong some more.

Even 500 guesses later I'd have been no closer to what a geoduck – as in "gooey duck" – really is - a saltwater clam with a very small shell but "siphons" three or more feet long.  They also are, I've heard but not had the courage to confirm,"good eatin'." 

And if I'd been asked what HUD has to do with "gooeys," About as much, I'd probably have answered, as it does with carbuncles or stalagmites.

Wrong again. In August, Secretary Donovan announced the 46 winners of more than $28 million in "catalytic" funds under HUD's new Rural Innovations Fund to promote an 'entrepreneurial approach' to affordable housing and economic development in rural areas.  Coincidentally, the Secretary's announcement came during Rural Month.  

You won't find many places more rural than Kake, Alaska, a village of just over 700 on the Kupreanof Island some 95 miles as a raven flies southwest of Juneau.  That's where HUD's going into the "gooey duck" business.  The Village has won a $567,908  Rural Innovations Fund grant to - in collaboration with villages of Naukati, Hoonah and Angoon, the Alaska Shellfish Association and the University of Southeast Alaska, the University of Alaska and other partners -"start up" a project to farm oysters and, yes, "gooey ducks."

Kake's not the only small village using the Fund to start a business and create jobs.  Out west near the Bearing Sea the village of Atmautluak has won a $798,888 Rural Innovation grant to work with the Cold Climate Housing Research Center of Fairbanks, to design and build homes able to withstand the rigors of Alaska's challenging environment much more effectively than houses designed for and imported from the Lower 48.

Travel downl to Nespelem, Washington on the reservation of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville. It's won a $799,750 Rural Innovation grant to launch Fuel Enterprises, a firm that will create 16 jobs to convert waste from logging, orchards and mills into energy. Or head just a bit further to Usk where the Kalispel Tribe is using its $240,970 Rural Innovation grant to build a nursery to cultivate and market native plants and trees.

Mary McBride, HUD's Northwest Regional Administrator, recently completed a 3-day, 1,000 mile, seven-city Rural Month.  "At every stop," she explained, "I was reminded of a simple fact about HUD programs – they work well in both the biggest cities and the smallest towns.  It's because HUD programs are flexible, adaptable, responsive to local conditions and needs. 

"Want to start a company and create jobs cultivating native plans?  Converting woody biomass to energy? Building climate-appropriate housing? Farming oysters and "gooey ducks."? Well, talk to HUD.  If your community has the will, HUD programs very well may offer the way."

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