In the Winter of 2014 St. Luke’s Health Initiatives launched a call for transformational projects to fund. In many minds, the question became “what qualifies as innovative?” We can think of no better way to provide an answer than through the selected grants themselves, starting with the International Rescue Committee’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative.

International Rescue Committee (IRC) has proposed a breakthrough idea to address multiple opportunities. IRC continues supporting sustainable refugee integration into the Arizona community, increases demand for healthier foods, extends the supply of fresh produce into areas that don’t have it, and creates a new business model for local food distribution and sales – using existing retail outlets. Beyond typical proposals to build a new grocery, develop new farmers markets or establishing mobile food vending, IRC took an inside-out look at the available players and pieces, and saw something new and transformative for Arizona. Get the whole story here.