Beyond funding: Capacity and skill-building to enhance the ability to address rural child nutrition

The Rural Child Poverty Nutrition Center (RCPNC) was created through grant funding from the United States Department of Agriculture Food and Nutrition Service and designed to address childhood food insecurity in persistently poor, rural counties in the United States. The RCPNC selected various community projects that focused on child nutrition assistance programs. Administration and technical assistance from the RCPNC allowed for improvements to child nutrition programs for the sub-grantees through the grant beginning with community needs assessments and programming meeting their individual needs. Evaluation found that the RCPNC was successful in assisting the sub-grantees reach their unique goals, which improve the initial outcomes as desired by the grant. Additionally, despite the unique communities the sub-grantees served, there were commonalities that linked all of the communities. This chapter describes the process with which the RCPNC sought unique communities with creative projects and explains the ways in which others can improve child nutrition outcomes.