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Success Stories

A mother and three daughters pose around a dining room table. There are lace curtains and blue wall in the background and some dishes on the table in the foreground.

“This is Home” – A Family Finds Their Forever Home in Calais, Maine

One of the first rooms Heather Gagne and her daughters began redecorating in their new home is the dining room, shown in the top photo. They have been busy repainting and making other updates. Raising a family in coastal Machias, Maine may sound lovely, but for Heather Gagne recent years proved stressful. There were few housing options in their Downeast community, and Heather was glad to find a rental home to…
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Use the filters below to find additional stories about how our programs have helped rural communities across the nation.

Search Results: 769 Stories

Hunger Takes No Vacation

Most students look forward to summer vacation with anticipation of relaxing and having fun, but many students don’t have that luxury because when the school year ends their next healthy meal isn’t guaranteed. In fact, more than 21 million students in the United States depend on… [Read More]
Summer Food ProgramMulti-Family
Home at Last

I Take Great Pride in Owning a Home

Kaitlyn Gehle and her son Jaxon had been living in a rental home for a year.  Kaitlyn dreamed of owning a home of her own and began working with a local realtor to find a house that she could afford and that Jaxon and she could turn into a home.  USDA Rural Development… [Read More]
Homeownership

Innovative Education at Pennsylvania Charter School

Bear Creek Community Charter School at Ten Mile Run in Bear Creek Township, Luzerne County, has such an amazing curriculum that it’s attracting students at an astonishing rate. The school is at full capacity and renovation to the old building is not feasible. The current… [Read More]
Community Facilities
woman standing beside new shower in bathroom

Investing in Safe, Affordable Housing on a South Dakota Reservation

Biological needs – sleep, food, water, air, shelter - form the base as they are of the greatest importance in maintaining life. Once a person has met the biological needs, the next concern is safety. In one of the poorest counties in the nation, Buffalo County, USDA Rural… [Read More]
GrantsHomeownershipTribalUnderserved
Red Shirt Table Overlook

Investing in the Basics of High Quality Education

As Acting State Director of USDA Rural Development in South Dakota, I want to ensure small South Dakotan communities have just as much opportunity to have successful business ventures, to build their community infrastructure, and to improve the quality of life in their hometowns… [Read More]
Economic DevelopmentGrants
Pine Ridge Indian Reservation sign

It's All About the Connections

In rural South Dakota, tribal members often lack access to higher education courses and facilities.  Students living on the 1,900-square-mile Rosebud Indian Reservation and the 11,000-square-mile Oglala Lakota Sioux Indian Reservation, for instance, struggle to travel long… [Read More]
EducationTribal

Lake Odessa Library Expansion Boosts Local Community

Outline Of Need: The Lake  Odessa Community Library opened in January of 1987. The original building was 1,500 square feet and in response to high usage from local residents, the library moved to its current 3,800 square foot location in 1998. Since then, demand for… [Read More]
Community Facilities
Electric Transmission Line

Largest Transmission Line in North Dakota Serves 125,000 Consumers

Electricity provides us with many conveniences: flip a switch and the dark is light, hit a button and our television turns on, heat your home in the winter and cool it in the summer, cook your food on the stove or store it in the refrigerator. Electricity is needed to run heavy… [Read More]
Electric

Lifetime Renter Achieves Homeownership

Rural Development has a multitude of programs that help communities expand upon their existing assets and assist in creating an infrastructure to help improve the lives of rural residents. For Linda Pickett, the opportunity to own a home has long seemed to be a distant reality.… [Read More]
HomeownershipHousing
USDA funds for green house lighting

Local Employer Receives Funds to Save on Energy Costs

 Ace Begonias, Inc. located in Woodbridge, CT., was founded in 1976 using a rented 3000 sq. ft. antique facility. In 1980, with assistance from USDA’s Farmer's Home Administration, they purchased nearly two dozen acres in Bethany and Woodbridge and added a 17,000 sq. ft.… [Read More]
Energy

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