Apply by February 19, 2025

The Rural Health Network Development Planning Program supports the planning and development of rural integrated health care networks with specific focus on collaboration of entities to establish or improve local capacity and care coordination in underserved communities.

Specifically, the program uses the concept of developing networks as a strategy for linking rural health care network participants together to achieve greater collective capacity to overcome local challenges, expand access and improve the quality of care in the rural communities these organizations serve.

The program helps network participants work together on three legislative aims:

• Achieve efficiencies
• Expand access to, coordinate, and improve the quality of basic health care services and associated health outcomes
• Strengthen the rural health care system as a whole

The intent is that rural health networks will do the following:

• Expand access to care
• Increase the use of health information technology
• Explore alternative health care delivery models
• Continue to achieve quality health care across the continuum of care

A total of $3,500,000 is available to fund 35 awards at $100,000 each.

Click here for additional information and the application package.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development Under Secretary Dr. Basil Gooden announced that USDA will pause accepting Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) applications for the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP). IRA applications are those requesting federal grant funding of up to 50 percent of total eligible project costs. The last day to submit a new IRA application for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 funding will be December 31, 2024, at 4:30 PM local time in the respective applicant’s time zone. This decision was made due to the continued overwhelming response to the funding opportunities made possible by IRA.

USDA will close the REAP FY 2025 IRA funding opportunity earlier than anticipated as over 3,000 applications have already been received, requesting more than twice the amount of the announced available funding. This decision will allow USDA time to dedicate the necessary resources and attention to the growing backlog of applications.

Additionally, USDA will not withdraw any FY 2024 IRA applications that have not been fully processed by December 31, 2024. The Agency will continue to process the remaining IRA FY 2024 applications and FY 2025 applications received by December 31, 2024.

Applications that are fully processed, complete and eligible will compete for available funding.

This decision does not affect FY 2025 applications submitted for Farm Bill funding. Farm Bill applications are those requesting federal grant funding of up to 25 percent of total eligible project costs. These applications can be submitted through March 31, 2025.

USDA anticipates accepting both REAP IRA and Farm Bill applications again starting on July 1, 2025, for Fiscal Year 2026 funding.

USDA appreciates your continued support and interest in the Rural Energy for America Program.

For any further inquiries regarding this announcement please contact your State Energy Coordinator.

If you would like to subscribe to USDA Rural Development updates, visit our GovDelivery subscriber page.

The FISA Foundation has announced a new request for proposals (RFP) to improve access to health care for people with disabilities in southwestern Pennsylvania. They will be funding grants up to $20,000 as part of a new initiative. The deadline to submit proposals is March 3rd. There is an informational session regarding the RFP on January 29th at 1pm via Zoom.

Click here for more information.
Click here to register for the informational session.

The Pennsylvania Trauma Systems Foundation (PTSF) Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Amy Kempinski, MSN, RN, CEN, TCRN as its next President. She will assume this role on January 1, 2025, upon the retirement of current President, Juliet Altenburg.

“We are delighted to welcome Amy Kempinski as our new President,” said Dr Henry Boateng, Chair of the PTSF Board of Directors. “After a rigorous nationwide search, including input from trauma care experts, organizational partners, and PTSF Board members, Amy’s comprehensive understanding of trauma systems and professional leadership made her the clear choice to lead PTSF into the next chapter of innovative trauma system development.”

Kempinski, who previously served as the Foundation’s Vice President, brings extensive experience in trauma systems and clinical expertise to this role. Her distinguished career spans the trauma spectrum, and her national influence is exemplified through her role as a member of the American College of Surgeons System Consultation Team, and her work as a consultant and site surveyor for trauma centers across the United States.

A Past President of the Society of Trauma Nurses (STN), Kempinski demonstrated her commitment to advancing trauma care through numerous leadership positions and educational initiatives. She is an active member in multiple professional organizations and has notable contributions to the field, including publications focused on trauma accreditation, performance improvement, crew resource management, leadership, and injury prevention.

In her new role, Kempinski will oversee PTSF’s mission of improving outcomes for trauma patients through accreditation, education, and research across Pennsylvania’s trauma centers. She will lead strategic initiatives to enhance the state’s trauma care system and strengthen collaboration among healthcare providers.

PTSF extends their gratitude to Juliet Altenburg MSN, RN, for her dedicated service to PTSF since 2000. Her time with PTSF caps a 40-year career in trauma nursing, trauma system development, and advocacy.

Former high school athlete Tyrone (Ty) Patillo of Aliquippa, PA, has community service in his blood. His father was the first minority firefighter in the community. Ty continues the family tradition of giving back. His dedication to helping his hometown led him to look for solutions to make healthy food options more accessible in the area.

Autumn Vogel of the Keystone Development Center (KDC) shares a similar passion for public service and community work. As the co-op developer with KDC, she loves to help communities use the power of co-ops to solve local problems.

Now, with the help of USDA Rural Development (RD), Autumn and Ty will be partnering together to help realize his vision of more equitable food access for the community, with the formation of the Aliquippa Food Co-op. Ty has already been working with the KDC to learn about co-ops, draft plans, and form a steering committee. With a $150,000 Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) grant in hand, KDC will help Ty and the steering committee move into the organizing and pre-construction phase.

In 1991, Ty and teammates such as NFL Hall-of-Famer Ty Law, led the Aliquippa High School football team to their first state championship. Ty used football as a path to success. His performance led him to play at Division 1 – The University of Akron in Ohio and then generated a successful career in real estate development.

Ty describes his community of more than 9,000 residents as being close knit – where everybody knows everybody. In communities like Aliquippa, cooperation can make or break a community. With family still living in Aliquippa, Ty became aware of the low-access food areas that exist in several parts of Beaver County – including his hometown.

After several ideas to address this issue fell through, Ty decided to combine the need for healthy foods and a close-knit community into a regional solution. He began the plan to develop a food co-op.

“This gives me an opportunity with this food co-op to get involved and really create something that the community can own,” Ty said.

None of this would be possible without local, state, and federal partnerships, and of course local champions like Ty Patillo. On Nov. 1, 2024, USDA RD announced the HFFI investment to aid the Aliquippa Food Co-op.

“Many low-income communities in Pennsylvania lack adequate, affordable access to healthy food,” Pennsylvania State Director Bob Morgan for USDA RD said. “USDA is proud to partner with KDC to ensure that these funds and resources reach the communities where they are needed most, so people can find nutritious food options anywhere they live.”

This announcement was part of USDA’s comprehensive set of efforts, bolstered by funding made available through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), to create more and better markets that benefit both producers and American consumers.

Without partnerships such as those with KDC, it would be difficult to reach the communities that need these investments the most.

Autumn has been a co-op developer with KDC for about five years. Autumn posits that her passion for public service and community work began during her childhood and college education at Allegheny College.

“Many of us look at the world around us and wish that it could be a little different,” she said. “I have a belief in people’s ability to work together for the place that they are in for a shared wealth, prosperity, and well-being.”

“Co-ops have been a really good way for me to see people coming together, to make decisions together, to work for things they can share and have,” she said. “They can address needs together that they could not address on their own. It is a really powerful model.”

Since 2021, USDA has invested more than $1.56 million in its partnership with KDC through programs such as the Rural Cooperative Development Grant (RCDG), Socially Disadvantaged Groups Grant (SDGG), Rural Business Development Grant (RBDG), and HFFI programs.

“Our [KDC’s] history is bound up in USDA funding,” Autumn said. “We wouldn’t really exist without that partnership. It is the bulk of funding that our center gets, and I know that is true for other centers as well.”

The Aliquippa Food Co-op is an inspiring group and KDC is in a supporting role, she said.

“They are so committed to that place, and they really do have a vision for the co-op and what it could mean for the area,” Autumn said.

Ty learned how to run, organize, and launch a successful cooperative in one of KDC’s co-op academies and graduated from the program in 2023. He left the program with the message that you can’t run a co-op by yourself, so he established a steering team and plan with the help of KDC. KDC was then able to provide further technical assistance to Ty and the steering committee thanks to funding support from NCBA-CLUSA’s Strengthening Co-op Capacity for Historically Underserved Farmers program.

The Healthy Food Financing Initiative was a little more flexible of a program for KDC because it allows co-development centers like KDC to support urban organizations. Because Aliquippa is located close to Pittsburgh, it is considered an urban community through federal regulations.

Ty and his food co-op steering committee have selected a site for the future co-op. They also conducted a feasibility study into the site’s potential performance and the local market. The co-op sees supporting local food entrepreneurs and farmers as core to its mission.

Now that the outreach and community engagement has begun, they plan to open the food co-op in the next three years and anticipate the co-op will serve about 30,000 people in a four-mile radius.

“Getting local food into this market is critical,” Autumn said. With partnerships such as these in Aliquippa, access to affordable healthy food will be possible.