We applied for that funding back in June. In August, we were connected with a staff member and we have been working with them. I just had an email a couple of days ago with additional clarifications. It does seem to be a bit of a challenging application, which is fair enough. We have applied for $220,000.
Right now in Cowichan we have a commercial kitchen that we have been renting out to processors and small-scale farmers since 2015. We've had 43 farmers and processors use our kitchen, but it's small, and their competing interest now is our own programming, because so many of our programs have escalated. We do Meals on Wheels and emergency food services.
There isn't a commercial kitchen that can be utilized by a number of farmers and processors. We're not on the scale that Mr. Lewis is on, by any stretch. I feel like the little mouse over here. Certainly we have dozens of farmers who could ramp up and who are ready to ramp up and want to ramp up, especially in shoulder seasons here, but there isn't a commercial kitchen space available, so that's what we're trying to set up right now.
We're trying to set up these food innovation hubs from across B.C., so we have applied for this funding, and we are a non-profit. We feel that we can set up something and manage it and then have it available to use 24 hours a day. Some farmers only want to come in once a week. We're not talking about a huge-scale operation.
Does that make sense?