{"id":23194,"date":"2025-03-11T14:42:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-11T20:42:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/table-to-farms-grants-released-after-freeze\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:28:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:28:40","slug":"table-to-farms-grants-released-after-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/table-to-farms-grants-released-after-freeze\/","title":{"rendered":"Table to Farm\u2019s grants released after freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Table
Table to Farm Compost co-owners Taylor Hanson, right; Monique DiGiorgio; and Parker Jayne, operations manager; look through the compost pile that is made up of produce from Albertsons in December 2019 at Twin Buttes. Their company received over $100,000 in grant money from the state to grow their operation and reduce the amount of waste heading to landfills in the area.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The owners of Table to Farm Compost say their invoices submitted to federal grant programs are now being processed after they contacted local, state and congressional representatives \u2013 along with The Durango Herald<\/em> \u2013 to warn of impending layoffs.<\/p>\n

The thawing of previously frozen federal funds allows the La Plata County composting business can rehire one of two employees laid off due to the funding shortfall. Three management-level positions will remain unpaid, said co-owner Taylor Hanson.<\/p>\n

Co-owner Monique DiGiorgio said Table to Farm is \u201cincredibly grateful\u201d for the swift response from elected officials. The offices of Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Jeff Hurd contacted the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers $2.4 million in grants awarded to the business.<\/p>\n

Nick Bayer, Hurd\u2019s chief of staff, said the congressman\u2019s office has been inundated with requests for help to access frozen federal funding and has been actively advocating on behalf of those constituents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just so thrilled that our two grant programs appear to be back on track, and we\u2019re very grateful, and we just hope that the USDA continues to see the importance of these types of programs,\u201d DiGiorgio said.<\/p>\n

It was an uncomfortable thing, she added, for the business to come out and publicly announce its strife. However, the community outpouring of support was \u201creally heartening and really helped us move forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Table to Farm\u2019s owners are wary of what the future might hold and are proceeding with caution. The sudden loss of federal funding upon which the business relied was an inflection point of sorts, Hanson said, and leadership is examining how to run the business more efficiently as they look toward expansion.<\/p>\n

The ultimate goal remains to provide compost pickup service for all of Durango.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still uncertainty, but Table to Farm is well-positioned to suit our community\u2019s needs going forward,\u201d Hanson said.<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Federal intervention restores USDA funding for La Plata County composting business<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[281,431,28,25],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-agriculture","tag-business-general","tag-headlines","tag-u-s-sen-michael-bennet"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78012,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23194\/revisions\/78012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23194"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}