Photo by Kellie Frank

Barbara Cannady for Burns Times-Herald

As the former administrator for our local Farm Service Administration office, Kellie Frank is no stranger to proposal writing. She recently used those skills to apply for a grant to expand her new business and passion, “And The Plot Chickens.”

The Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) grants, aka “Farm to School” (Producer Equipment and Infrastructure (F2S EI) Grants), are designed to help producers and processors overcome financial barriers to entering or expanding into the school marketplace.” And the Plot Chickens will use the majority of the $34,213 grant award to build a walk-in cooler, including the electrical and contract work.  

Currently selling her own eggs, veggies and flowers, she plans to add hatching eggs, baby chicks and duck eggs in the spring. Sharing her experience, Kellie has also become a coordinator for other vendors through her organizer roll with Harney County Food Systems Group – funds passing through High Desert Partnership (HDP) – that is working to promote education, grant opportunities, community events, assistance for start-up business, and support to sell local food and household products. Kellie’s vision is to share the walk in cooler space with other growers to maximize storage of produce that can be delivered to local schools.

There are three schools in Harney County that qualify for the National School Lunch Program (Crane, Slater, and the Early Childhood Center) which Kellie hopes to connect with. Kellie has also worked with Tori Gardner from the hospital to discuss getting items into the rural schools when Tori visits them once a month. For example, they were able to send home grown pumpkin seeds as part of a “healthy trail mix” Tori made with the kids in October.

For the current school year, Kellie is hoping to focus on items that can be easily utilized in schools such as lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, peppers and any veggies the schools request. She can’t sell eggs to the school at this time, and any meat items have to be USDA processed. 

Through her Food Systems Group position, she has been working with local businesses that have meat products to sell, and has assisted them in getting it into the schools.  For community members, Kellie is happy to help connect anyone looking for meat or other products with her several contacts and can usually help customers find what they need, whether in her inventory list or not.

Beginning in June and running through the middle to end of September, depending on the weather, Kellie will manage the Burns Farmers Market at the Palace. She is excited about the amazing vendors at this years’ venue with tasty sour dough bread, lots of meat options, veggies, lemonade, freshly made treats, kids’ activities and fresh cut flower bouquets among the offerings. She plans for “And the Plot Chickens” to have a booth there every week as well.

This particular ODA grant funds every other year, so it is currently closed for this biennium.  In the meantime, Kellie hosted a Farm to School Regional Training for eight growers from Grant, Harney, and Malheur County, where she discussed the grant and how to apply.

Kellie has identified a lot of grant funding available for Food Systems, local growers, etc. She recently held a free workshop at the Foundry Building that went over open grants, how to apply, and where to find this information. If someone is interested in finding out more information, she encourages them to send her an email so she can include them on the monthly newsletter list that will notify readers of open grants and events planned with the Food Systems Group.  

To do grant writing well takes a lot of time. It took Kellie several days to compile the necessary information. She did have to secure a “letter of intent” from a school saying they agreed to purchase produce from her. She will be using her personal time and mileage making deliveries of produce to Crane and Slater as matching funds. As a bonus, she was fortunate to have some procedure assistance from a friend that works in the Food System sector from Wallowa County. She now wants to pay that blessing forward.

Whether you would like to join the Food Systems Group as a producer or support them as a customer, Kellie suggests that the best way to contact her is via email: andtheplotchickens@gmail.com. Using the email, she can get you her most time sensitive phone number so you can connect or text. During the summer she will schedule pick-ups at the Market on Saturdays located at the Palace parking lot, from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. During the winter it will be on a case by case basis.