The Red Ants Pants Foundation announced more than $19,000 in grants to projects that support women’s leadership, working family farms and ranches, and rural communities. Fueled by ticket sales and donations from the 2016 Red Ants Pants Music Festival, the foundation has now given more than $85,000 in grants to date.

 
“Everyone who enjoys the Red Ants Pants Music Festival is having a lasting impact on rural communities and our working family farms and ranches while helping to move the dial on women’s leadership. It’s a genuine way for people to come together, enjoy our rural landscapes and leave knowing that they’re contributing in a meaningful way,” said Sarah Calhoun, Executive Director of the Red Ants Pants Foundation and Producer of the Red Ants Pants Music Festival. “Our 2017 grantees are doing phenomenal work ranging from empowering young girls to explore careers in the trades to a small town pooling their resources to revive a local grocery store."
 
The 2017 Red Ants Pants Foundation Community Grants include a diversity of funding to support projects that include reopening a local grocery store in Turner, Montana; a grant to support the Sweet Grass Beef to School program in Big Timber; funding to support Farm Hands – Nourish the Flathead which benefits the Blackfeet Nourish Project as well as investments to support science and learning throughout rural communities in Montana.
 
Grant applications are considered based on how they best help fulfill the Foundation's mission of developing and expanding leadership roles for women, preserving and supporting working family farms and ranches, and enriching rural communities.
 
The 7^th Red Ants Pants Music Festival will take place on the Jackson Ranch, a working cattle ranch, outside of White Sulphur Springs July 27^th – 30^th. The 2017 festival will support the 2018 Red Ants Pants Foundation Community Grant Cycle.
 

 
Big Flat Grocery
Location: Turner, MT
Grant Awarded: $1,500
Big Flat Grocery is a cooperative that was formed by approximately 75 local shareholders in Turner, Montana (pop. 61), in the attempt to reopen their grocery store.  Their cooperative model has proven to be successful thus far, but the building in which the grocery store is located is in dire need of maintenance and a facelift.
 
The Carter County Museum
Location: Ekalaka, MT
Grant Awarded: $4,300
Founded by the Carter County Geological Society, the Museum is a community institution that engages audiences in exploring 90 million years of history including dinosaurs, American Indian ways of life, and the ranching traditions of today. This grant will be used to purchase a microscope and viewing system for the Hell Creek Amber Citizen Science Project. This project supports their mission to increase knowledge and appreciation of science by enabling participants to discover new species of beetles, wasps, flies, and ants - all while contributing to the understanding of the Cretaceous extinction 66 million years ago. 
 
The C.M. Russell Museum
Location: Great Falls, MT
Grant Awarded: $2,250
The Russell is developing a new humanities curriculum centered on the life and artwork of Charles Marion Russell (1864–1926). The curriculum is designed to build students’ critical thinking skills, enhance creative problem-solving, and instill a sense of personal agency in middle school students. Underpinning the Russell for Learning (R4L) curriculum is the humanities theme, "Sense of Place," aimed at empowering students to think critically about their cultural, geographic, historic, and artistic "place" in order to become engaged citizens who make thoughtful, informed decisions for their lives and communities. One teacher in Meagher County, Montana will be trained to offer this curriculum to middle school students.
 
The Crazy Peak Cattle Women
Location: Melville, MT
Grant Awarded: $704
The grant supports the Sweet Grass Beef to School program in 2017 to provide wholesome, nutritious, local beef to the students at the Big Timber Grade School and Sweet Grass County High School.  This grant will be used to create informational brochures about the program and a school cafeteria display board featuring local producers.  Funds will also be used to host the inaugural farm to school day and beef brat designing contest where 4th grade students will learn about food production and the importance of agriculture to the local community. 
 
Farm Hands - Nourish the Flathead
Location: Whitefish, MT
Grant Awarded: $2,000
Farm Hands – Nourish the Flathead is a grassroots non-profit that is dedicated to connecting communities to local food and those who produce it through education, outreach, and market support.  They work to create a just food system that is accessible to everyone, regardless of age or ability to pay.  The grant from the Reds Ant Pants Foundation will provide much needed funds for their Food for All Programs that benefit seniors, SNAP recipients, and school children, as well as providing support to their Blackfeet Nourish Project.
 
The Friends of the Meagher County City Library
Location: White Sulphur Springs, MT
Grant Awarded: $600
The Friends support the Library in a number of ways, including bringing in speakers to the community to present on a variety of topics. Grant funding from the Red Ants Pants Foundation will be used to purchase a projector system that will be used for these programs, as well as be available for other library programs.
 
Glacier County Healthy Food Project
Location: Cut Bank, MT
Grant Awarded: $500
This project brings fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables to food deserts and food distribution centers in Glacier County through donations and volunteer work.  During May 2017, the project successfully completed delivery of 100 Gaines Produce mini-boxes to families in Heart Butte and Cut Bank.  This grant will allow for a second delivery of 100 boxes for the 2017-2018 year and will help to bring attention to donating healthy foods.
 
The Golden Valley Community Foundation
Location: Ryegate, MT
Grant Awarded: $1,690
The Community Foundation is dedicated to creating more opportunities in the towns of Ryegate and Lavina.  They are in the process of purchasing the recently closed bank building for use as a bank branch and senior citizen health clinic.  With the money awarded by the Red Ants Pants Foundation, they will be able to reconnect the water and sewer, insure the building, and fix other problems that arise in the revitalization process.
 
Meagher County 4-H
Location: White Sulphur Springs, MT
Grant Awarded: $1,500
The 4-H program has deep, historic roots in Meagher County.  Grandparents of current 4-H members showed in the same two barns that are being used today.  The Meagher County 4-H Council will use this grant toward putting up a new multi-purpose barn at the fairgrounds.  This will allow the 4-H Fair activities to be under a roof for the first time.  The barn will host the annual livestock show and sale, exhibit the indoor fair items, accommodate the 4-H horse program during inclement weather, and house many other 4-H activities.
 
Meagher County Chamber of Commerce Art and Cultural Trail
Location: White Sulphur Springs, MT
Grant Awarded: $1,000
The Art and Cultural Trail will feature barn square quilts and historical site interpretation to celebrate the past and present people within Meagher County. By defining a trail along the highways circling the Castle Mountains, they will connect and showcase the working rural communities in the region by telling their stories to visitors and younger generations. This grant will fund the purchase of paint and supplies for these barn art quilts that will be installed along the trail.
 
The Meagher County City Library
Location: White Sulphur Springs, MT
Grant Awarded: $1,000
The Library has just reached their goal of fundraising for a completely new facility! This will be the first time they have ever had a building that will be able to fit their more specific needs - no more retrofitted spaces.  The construction of a new, larger building will provide the space and versatility the growing community needs for decades to come.
 
The Monarch/Neihart Community and Senior Center
Location: Neihart, MT
Grant Awarded: $1,000
The Monarch/Neihart Community and Senior Center was built using logs from the King’s Hill area.  Its original function was a school that operated from 1941 to 1980.  Since that time, it has been used as the center for Monarch's and Neihart's community functions ranging from weekly dinners, health and exercise classes, quilting, town hall meetings, anniversary and birthday parties, funerals, and just about anything for which there is a need. This grant funding will be used to help defray the cost of lead abatement and window replacement in the historical old school house.
 
YWCA Missoula’s GUTS!
Location: Missoula, MT
Grant Awarded: $1,000
The Girls Using Their Strengths (GUTS!) program encourages girls and young women to explore their own personal values and discover their strengths through wilderness adventures in the summer and after-school groups and community service projects during the academic year. GUTS! has developed a new way of empowering girls to explore non-traditional careers through GRIT (Girls Representing In Trades.)  GRIT aims to engage, educate, and encourage young girls to explore trade- and skill-based work as attainable and feasible careers – anything from construction to auto mechanics to welding.
 
For more information, visit www.RedAntsPantsFoundation.org.