Dozens of convenience stores dot the Hartford landscape, but there is only one full-service supermarket, making healthy food difficult to obtain in a city where more than 30 percent of the population live in poverty and have little, if any, access to suburban grocery outlets, according to a news release from the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
The foundation has awarded two grants from its Catalyst Endowment Fund to help address the problem. Receiving grants are:
• Hartford Food System received a $27,000 grant to help expand a program that encourages small, Hartford neighborhood grocery stores to shift 5 percent of shelf space from junk food and soft drinks to healthier items to improve the diets of residents.
• Billings Forge Community Works received a $23,000 grant to help expand its popular Farmers’ Market in one of the poorest sections of Hartford to a year-round program. The grant includes funding for nutritional workshops and healthful food demonstrations.
Robinson & Cole has become a New England Air Museum business partner. “Robinson & Cole is proud to support the museum, which strives to preserve and document Connecticut’s place in aviation history for future generations,” said John B. Lynch, managing partner at Robinson & Cole, in a news release. Lynch and Jeffrey J. White, a lawyer in the firm’s business litigation group and member of the museum’s development committee, accepted a plaque bearing a picture of the cockpit of the B-29 Superfortress, a popular exhibit at the museum. The faithfully restored bomber is part of the 58th Bomb Wing Memorial, which pays tribute to the first unit to take the B-29 into combat in WWII.
Sea Research Foundation Inc., which includes Mystic Aquarium, Institute for Exploration and Immersion Learning, received two grants totaling $34,255 from government agencies. The state Department of Environmental Protection, New York Department of Environmental Conservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded $1,011,878 in Long Island Sound Futures Fund grants to local governments and community organizations. The grants fund 33 projects that improve water quality, restore habitat, enhance living resources and educate and involve the public.
