World Relief Seattle in Kent will receive $673,000 from the federal government to help develop a teaching and commercial kitchen to serve the King County refugee and immigrant population.
Congressman Adam Smith, D-Bellevue, whose 9th District includes parts of Kent, requested $9 million for 10 community projects across the district. The projects were approved by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden this month as part of a $1.5 trillion spending package.
“These projects will help tackle some of the most pressing challenges facing communities across the 9th District, making real progress to address housing and homelessness, health care and social services, child care, education and workforce training, and small businesses and entrepreneurship,” Smith said. “On housing alone, the projects have the potential to create over 650 new units of affordable rental housing, temporary emergency housing, and affordable homes for ownership.
“I firmly believe the federal government must do more to spur investment in and get federal dollars to underserved communities and I am proud to use my community project funding requests for this purpose. I thank the project sponsors and partners for their tireless leadership to improve the lives of people in the 9th District.”
The funding secured through the appropriations process will help World Relief develop a teaching and commercial kitchen that will be a multi-impact community space serving King County’s refugee and immigrant population.
This space will be used as an entrepreneurship and small business incubation hub to launch and promote local businesses, particularly food-based businesses, and train refugee and immigrant entrepreneurs through an Entrepreneurship Academy hosted in the space, according to a Smith press release.
The project will promote entrepreneurship and successful small business ownership within historically underserved communities; advance community based economic empowerment through promoting food related businesses and income-generating initiatives; and simultaneously increase food security and sovereignty for refugee and immigrant communities.
Smith said the community projects focus on our most vulnerable and underserved communities, including people experiencing homelessness, immigrants and refugees, seniors, low-income communities, and communities of color.
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