Eligible participants can apply for one-time $600 federal relief payment

The Cherokee Nation is among 15 agencies or governments across the United States chosen by the USDA to administer the Farm and Food Workers Relief Program.

The Cherokee Nation will act as a passthrough agency to distribute the federal relief funding.

Eligible participants can apply for the relief payment through Cherokee Nation’s FFWR site https://farmandfoodworkersrelief. cherokee. org starting May 2. A one-time $600 relief payment will be available to eligible applicants who performed paid farming, agricultural, and meatpacking work within the period of Jan. 27, 2020 through April 10, 2023. Those eligible should be frontline workers.

The relief payment is intended to defray costs for reasonable and necessary personal, family, or living expenses related to the pandemic.

Cherokee Nation will disseminate the $41 million in federal relief payments through an online application starting May 2 to help the eligible farm and food workers affected by the pandemic, with priority given to members of federally-recognized tribes across the nation.

“There may be as many as six million Natives who are eligible for this relief payment and as a tribe we know how tough the pandemic has affected Native families and hope those eligible will apply for these funds to help continue with recovery and rebuilding,” Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said.

Grant recipients like the Cherokee Nation will have a period of two years (24 months) to distribute the direct relief in the form of $600 flat-rate payments per eligible beneficiary. It is not a renewable nor annual benefit. Once a worker has been verified as eligible, the worker will receive the onetime $600 payment to be released in a single financial transaction.

“Cherokee Nation recognizes the hard work that these frontline workers across the country perform, not only through the pandemic but every day, for the farm and food industry. It is our hope that this payment can relieve some of the financial burdens that these essential workers have experienced,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of Natural Resources Chad Harsha said.

The Farm and Food Workers Relief Grant Program provides approximately $665 million in Consolidated Appropriations Act funds to provide grants to state agencies, Tribal entities, and nonprofit organizations with experience in providing support or relief services to farmworkers and meatpacking workers.

If funds remain, other eligible applicants include affected workers within the Cherokee Nation Reservation regardless of citizenship in a federally recognized tribe.

For more info on the grant program and a list of approved organizations acting as pass-through funding agencies, visit www. ams.usda.gov/services/ grants/ffwr.