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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
A woman looks up at the damage in her ceiling. Boards are being used to prop up ceiling sections.

There’s No Place Like Home

Sandra was born and raised in the rural town of Greenwood, Mississippi, but wanted more excitement in her life. She moved to Los Angeles in her early 20’s and loved it, but she got terribly homesick for her family every time she called home. In 1999, she followed her heart home… [Read More]
African AmericanHome RepairHousingRural DevelopmentUnderserved
A women standing in her house with her arms held out at shoulder height to show how dipped her roof is. It sags in the middle where she stands.

Singing in the Rain

Doris is a retired nurse who has lived in her home in Greenwood, Mississippi for 42 years. When USDA Rural Development (RD) and the Delta Design Build Workshop (Delta DB) visited her in late January 2022, her home’s kitchen ceiling beam sagged down so low that she could touch it… [Read More]
African AmericanHome RepairHousingMental HealthRural DevelopmentUnderserved
A smiling woman stands on the roof of a house and watches while works fix the roof.

Preserving History in the Delta

The small town of Greenwood in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, once nicknamed the “Cotton Capital of the World,” has seen its share of success, but that was a long time ago. When cotton cultivation and processing became mechanized in the early 20th century, thousands of… [Read More]
African AmericanHome RepairHousingRural DevelopmentUnderserved
Women putting a blanket in the washing machine while looking at an electrical box above the washer that has no cover and is a nest of wires leading into the fuses. It looks very unsafe.

RD, RPG and Delta DB: a Great Team!

Retired schoolteacher and great-grandmother Rutha was due to turn 80 years old the day after she welcomed USDA Rural Development (RD) and the Delta Design Build (Delta DB) Workshop to her recently repaired home in Greenwood, Mississippi in late August 2022.  Last year,… [Read More]
African AmericanHome RepairHousingRural DevelopmentUnderserved
Greenwood, MS Sign

The Art of Hope

In January 2022, retired correctional officer Willie led USDA Rural Development (RD) specialists through her pitch-black, frigid home in Greenwood, Mississippi. Her three-room house had no permanent electricity, running water, plumbing, or interior finishing. In her bedroom, icy… [Read More]
Home RepairHousingRural DevelopmentUnderserved

Feds Feed Families in New Mexico

New Mexico Rural Development Staff at Roadrunner Food Bank After many months of diligently working apart to serve New Mexicans during the pandemic the opportunity to come together at our annual State Employee meeting was very exciting… [Read More]
Underserved
Resident hugging her new home.

Partnership’s key to smoothing bumpy road to successful homeownership

USDA Rural Development and Red Cliff Chippewa Housing Authority (RCCHA) have partnered over the years in Wisconsin to help tribal members make repairs to existing homes and to help renters reach their goals of becoming homeowners on tribal-leased land. Carrie Fulton, a USDA… [Read More]
HomeownershipHousingTribal
People standing behind a sign

High Speed Internet for Southwestern Montana

Southern Montana Telephone Company, located in Wisdom, received a $3.3 million ReConnect grant in 2019 which they used to bring high-speed internet to nearly 1,000 customers, spread out over almost 2,000 miles, in Southwestern Montana. For more information on USDA Rural… [Read More]
BroadbandGrantsUtilities
Freeze-dried fruit chips in plates on a table laid out for sampling.

Freeze Drying Lessens a Farmer’s Financial Risk Plus More

Rachael Ryan is a life-long farmer from southern New Mexico. Over the years she’s seen the ups and downs of her farming business called Back Yard Farms. --And she especially knows about the downs that come as an ag producer. She loves farming, but she knows farmers are at the… [Read More]
BusinessGrantsValue Added
A pretty white home with blue shutters and hanging plants

More Than Just Home Repair- Refinance Helps Atlantic County Senior Maintain Independent Living

Ms. Barbara Delozier is a single senior living in Atlantic County, New Jersey. Like a lot of seniors on fixed incomes, Ms. Delozier finds it hard to make ends meet and manage cost of homeownership. Barbara has lived in her home for over a decade. Her home, built in 1965, needed… [Read More]
GrantsHome RepairHomeownershipHousing

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