• USDA Announces Grants to Help End Hunger in America: New Grants to Foster Hunger-Free Communities and Deliver Help to Americans in Need
  
  Through the grants, FNS seeks strategies that support the creation of Hunger-Free Communities by funding activities including food distribution, community outreach, resource development and other methods to make food more accessible to those most in need. One million will fund Planning and Assessment Grants to evaluate food insecurity in communities and develop strategies to become hunger-free. The remaining $4 million will support Implementation Grants for communities that already have a plan to end hunger and need resources for program implementation. The grants are available to public and not-for-profit organizations and require collaboration with one or more community partners. Grant applications may be submitted by email to: HungerFreeCommunities@fns.usda.gov or through www.grants.gov.

• SRTS MINI-GRANT CALL FOR APPLICATIONS. The National Center for Safe Routes to School is accepting applications for up to 35 $1,000 mini-grants for creative, youth-focused ideas that support safe walking and/or bicycling to school. Eligible activities must occur at an elementary or middle school in Fall 2010 and support the overall goal of SRTS programs -- to enable and encourage children nationwide to safely walk and bicycle to school. These mini-grants encourage communities to get students involved in the effort to foster a culture of walking and bicycling in their own neighborhoods.
  More information. [Source: CenterLines Issue: 248, March 3, 2010]

• Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research Call for Proposals
  Application Deadline: Rolling
  
  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has posted a call for proposals (CFP) in the Childhood Obesity program area. Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research are national programs of RWJF that support research to identify promising policy and environmental strategies for increasing physical activity, promoting healthy eating and preventing obesity. The overall aim of both of these programs is to provide key decision- and policy-makers with evidence to guide effective action to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic.
  
  The objective of this CFP is to support time-sensitive, opportunistic studies to evaluate changes in policies or environments with the potential to reach children who are at highest risk for obesity, including African-American, Latino, Native American, Asian-American and Pacific Islander children (ages 3 to 18) who live in low-income communities or communities with limited access to affordable healthy foods and/or safe opportunities for physical activity. Research studies may focus on one or both sides of the energy balance equation – on physical activity (including sedentary behavior), healthy eating or both. Studies funded under this CFP are expected to advance RWJF’s efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.
  
  Two types of studies are eligible for rapid-response funding under this CFP:
  1. Opportunistic evaluations of imminent changes in policies or environments (i.e., “natural experiments”).
  2. Studies that can inform an ongoing or upcoming policy debate (e.g., small experimental studies, secondary data analyses, cost-effectiveness analyses, health impact assessments, simulations of policy effects or macro-level policy analyses).

Up to $1.675 million total will be awarded for rapid-response research grants, with the majority of funds in this CFP focused on physical activity studies.

The maximum amount for a single grant is $150,000, with a maximum funding period of 12 months.

Visit the Active Living Research or Healthy Eating Research Web sites for more details about this CFP and information on how to apply, at www.activelivingresearch.org or www.healthyeatingresearch.org

• Obesity Prevention and Control Policy Research: Two NIH Funding Opportunities
  Community-Based Partnerships for Childhood Obesity Prevention and Control: Research to Inform Policy (R03)
  (PA-09-140)
  Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
  National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
  National Cancer Institute
  National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
  Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research
  Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple receipt dates, see announcement.
  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-09-140.html

  Community-Based Partnerships for Childhood Obesity Prevention and Control: Research to Inform Policy (R21)
  (PA-09-141)
  Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
  National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
  National Cancer Institute
  National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
  Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research
  Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple receipt dates, see announcement.
  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-09-141.html

• Grant Opportunity
  The 2008 Farm Bill authorized the creation of the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), which replaces the National Research Initiative (NRI). AFRI offers research, education, extension project opportunities that focus on six key areas of importance to agriculture, nutrition, food safety, environment, and rural communities.
  
  1. Plant Health and Production and Plant Products
  2. Animal Health and Production and Animal Products
  3. Food Safety, Nutrition, and Health
  4. Renewable Energy, Natural Resources, and Environment
  5. Agriculture Systems and Technology
  6. Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities
  
  CSREES released the AFRI program announcement on the agency’s Web site www.csrees.usda.gov and on Grants.gov.  The program announcement provides an overview of the legislation that created the AFRI program and describes programs being offered in Fiscal Year 2009. The program descriptions contain the program priorities, deadline dates, budget limitations, and contact information. The program announcement does not contain all information needed to submit an application. That information will be contained in the AFRI Request for Applications (RFA). The AFRI RFA is anticipated in January 2009.
  
  Potential applicants are advised to review the entire AFRI program announcement closely to ensure that they understand the full range of programs and grant types available.