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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 the Downeast community, and Heather was glad to find a rental home to…
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Find Stories

Use the filters below to find additional stories about how our programs have helped rural communities across the nation.

Search Results: 179 Stories
stocking shelves at food pantry

Northern Wisconsin Food Pantry Meets Community’s Needs with the Help of USDA

 In the past 10 years, the Rhinelander area in Wisconsin has lost 1,200 high paying jobs. Thus leaving only minimum wage employment opportunities; creating a class of "working poor" and qualifying more than half the school students for free or reduced lunch. To assist the… [Read More]
Wisconsin
Community Facilities
Palisade Fire Station

Palisade Fire Barn Renovation

The preexisting fire barn in Palisade, Nebraska, was too small to accommodate the needs of its Rural Fire District. The fire ambulance, fire trucks, grass rigs, and other equipment were all parked inside a one-door building. There was barely enough room to walk between the… [Read More]
Nebraska
Community Facilities
[From left to right] Grottoes Volunteer Fire Department board members Jeff Morris, Captain CJ Chandler and Assistant Chief Chandler Hardy pictured in front of fire protection equipment purchased with the help of a $50,000 USDA Rural Development grant.

Pride in a department, pride in a community

Nostalgia filled the Grottoes Volunteer Fire Department (GVFD) training room recently as four lifetime members reminisced about how far the department has come in 94 years. The department’s history - stemming back to 1922 even before its incorporation in 1948 - shows that it’s… [Read More]
Virginia
Community FacilitiesRural Development

Primos Pasos First Steps

Primeros Pasos, Inc. was founded by a grass roots group of caring citizens who saw a need for a high-quality education and child learning center.  The group opened a center in 1997 in a rental property.  In 2007, Primeros Pasos purchased a parcel of land (on Savannah… [Read More]
Delaware, Maryland, and District of Columbia (DC)
Community Facilities
Picture of South Big Horn Hospital

Rural Hospital Modernizes with USDA Rural Development

35 miles may not seem like a long distance, but when a Wyoming blizzard is blowing and the road is a sheet of ice, the delay could mean the difference between life or death. South Big Horn County Hospital in Basin, Wyoming carries the designation of a critical access hospital,… [Read More]
Wyoming
Community Facilities
New Monitoring System

Saving Lives Through USDA Rural Development Funding

Day Kimball Healthcare, located in the second district of Connecticut in Middlesex county, was awarded a Community Facility Grant to purchase bedside physiologic monitoring equipment. USDA Rural Development provided $50,000 in grant funds for the project. The  hospital is… [Read More]
Connecticut
Community Facilities

The Minidoka Spillway

The Minidoka Dam’s history seems almost as long as its 2,237 foot long concrete pier and spillway.  Talk of building the dam in south-central Idaho to help early settlers do more than just scratch out a living goes back to the 1880’s, but finally came to fruition after… [Read More]
Idaho
Community Facilities

University of Pikeville to Build Kentucky's First Optometry College

“Here we grow again.” City leaders in Pikeville, Ky., are very fond of this expression, and with construction set to begin on another multi-million project in the downtown area, it is apropos for them to begin using it again. Thanks to a $40 million direct loan through USDA’s… [Read More]
Kentucky
Community Facilities
USDA helps Community Improve and Expand Hospital Services in Historic “Dam Town”

USDA helps Community Improve and Expand Hospital Services in Historic “Dam Town”

Outline Of Need: Boulder City Hospital, Inc. is a non-profit located in the historic community of Boulder City, Nevada, home of Hoover Dam. The hospital was built in 1965 and moved to its current location in 1973. After years of service, the critical access hospital located at… [Read More]
Nevada
Community Facilities

USDA Investment Makes a Dangerous Road Safer

U.S. Highway 6 has been named one of America’s Deadliest Highways more than once throughout the past 15 years. It is a long stretch of road that is a favorite of truckers, tourists, and residents for its direct route to the Wasatch Front’s medical centers, shopping, and… [Read More]
Utah
Community Facilities

Additional Success Stories