Alaska Village Initiatives (AVI) recently received a $28,000 grant from the First Nations Development Institute (FNDI) of Longmont, Colorado. This award will support the efforts of AVI’s The Amazing Ag-in-a-Box Traveling Classroom.

AVI’s President/CEO Charles Parker noted that the First Nations grant “expands our ability to work with our villages to create food security and provide agriculture education while generating new economic opportunities in rural Alaska.”

Recognizing the threat, AVI began the development of a broadly based online subsistence agriculture curriculum during the pandemic in 2020. Over the next four years, the education team will deliver 24 agriculture and 17 business and financial courses. Mr. Parker continued, “AVI can now expand our online program with in-person workshops in Southcentral Alaska through our new program, The Amazing Ag-in-a-Box Traveling Classroom. AVI’s commitment is to help start, operate, and sustain community agriculture programs that provide locally grown, healthy, and affordable produce. Community gardens are a nurturing process requiring long-term commitments as the cycle matures while experiencing both success and failure. Education, outreach, partnerships, and continuing education will be necessary if Alaska’s native villages are to become food secure.”

Alaska Village Initiatives (AVI) is a non-profit membership-based company formed in 1968 dedicated to improving the well-being of rural Alaska communities, families, and individuals. AVI focuses on increasing subsistence farming while addressing food security and economic opportunities while changing the paradigm of the high cost of transportation of food. AVI’s programmatic activities seek to create subsistence agriculture through hands-on workshops, utilizing our new television studio and podcast to deliver business and financial curricula.

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