Tobacco Grants Reflect Changes

Source from:  citizen-times.com by Jordan Schrader November 24, 2007 11/26/2007

A grant for Pisgah High School will buy computer-operated lathes and mills to replace equipment that has been in the machine shop nearly as long as the teacher. "The stuff we've got now, it's 15 years old," Chip Singleton said, "and when you're talking a 15-year-old computer, it's not running anymore." But Singleton is still running the metals manufacturing class well enough to impress the right people. It won the $250,000 grant this month because of success in working with industry and building students' interest in the machinists' trade, said Valeria Lee, president of the Golden Leaf Foundation. The foundation - charged with distributing money won by the state in a lawsuit against tobacco companies to areas hard-hit by the decline of the tobacco industry - continues to fund projects aimed at bolstering Western North Carolina's economy. Grants awarded this month for the 2007-08 fiscal year went to residents of Haywood County to promote mountain-grown produce, to Buncombe to encourage women-run businesses, and to Mitchell to promote the Christmas tree industry. Competition for grants One mountain legislator, Rep. Ray Rapp, said in a newsletter to constituents that Golden Leaf's awards show WNC is "beginning to get our 'fair share' of funds." "I think our people are getting more grant-savvy and are submitting more applications," Rapp, D-Madison, added in an interview. Applicants from communities west of Interstate 77 received $2.2 million of the $15.6 million in grants, still less than the $7.5 million for those along I-95 or farther east. Some lawmakers have complained that too much of the tobacco-settlement money goes to urban areas, despite the foundation's mission to give preference to tobacco-dependent and economically distressed regions. "We have little communities down here that are drying up and need help since they have lost their tobacco and textiles," said state Sen. David Weinstein, a Democrat from Robeson County, south of Fayetteville, who has been an advocate of dissolving Golden Leaf. Weinstein said he sees improvement ahead, saying Golden Leaf has promised to teach rural eastern communities how to apply for grants. Lee said WNC has been hard hit by a decline in the production of burley tobacco. The foundation's mission includes diversifying the state's economy, she said - hence the support for new ways of manufacturing and farming. Farmers, students benefit Haywood County farmers have experimented with growing a new kind of tomato, about the size of a golf ball and with a longer shelf life than traditional varieties, consultant George Ivey said. Ivey wrote the Buy Haywood project's grant application that secured $60,000 for marketing local produce. "If you go to your local grocery store, or even to a local restaurant, chances are you are getting food that has traveled 1,500 miles before it reached your plate," he said. The group wants to preserve local farmland, a mission it shares with the Asheville-based Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, which won $75,000. Farmers could also benefit from the $250,000 put toward marketing WNC Christmas trees and $50,000 for promoting the region's raspberries and blackberries. The grant for the nonprofit Haywood County Schools Foundation takes a different tack to adjusting WNC to a changing economy, helping Pisgah High train future machinists. Students who learn to shape brass and steel on the new computerized machines will need less training at Unison Engine Components in Asheville as they embark on apprenticeships there for high school credit. "Without the help of Golden Leaf, there's no way we would be able to fund a program like that," Singleton said. That kind of money is just not there." Enditem