This yr, extra low-income households in Missouri and Kansas will be capable to double their shopping for energy when buying vegatables and fruits.
New USDA funding will enable the Mid-America Regional Council to increase the Double Up Meals Bucks program within the Kansas and Missouri from 80 to 140 places. This system gives eligible shoppers a dollar-for-dollar match – as much as $25 per day – for produce at collaborating grocery shops and farmers markets.
Shoppers are eligible if they’re enrolled within the federal Supplemental Vitamin Help Program, stated Londa Nwadike, extension meals security specialist for the College of Missouri and Kansas State College.
Final summer season, MARC – a nonprofit affiliation of cities and counties within the bistate Kansas Metropolis area – obtained a three-year, $4.6 million grant from the USDA’s Nationwide Institute of Meals and Agriculture to convey Double Up Meals Bucks to extra places.
This system has redeemed virtually $3 million in incentives for SNAP recipients since 2015, stated MARC’s Donna Martin, supervisor of Double Up Meals Bucks.
MARC companions with native and regional organizations to implement this system. Via a $757,622 contract, MU Extension will work with farmers markets outdoors metro Kansas Metropolis and west-central Missouri.
“This program is a large profit to SNAP recipients, to have the ability to afford to purchase extra vegatables and fruits,” stated MU Extension state diet and well being training specialist Jollyn Tyryfter, who works with Nwadike on the venture.
“It’s additionally a fantastic profit to native farmers market distributors who’re capable of promote extra vegatables and fruits,” added Jennifer Elms, the newly employed coordinator of MU Extension’s Double Up Meals Bucks program.
Nwadike encourages farmers market managers and distributors to hitch an informational webinar at midday Tuesday, Feb. 8. The one-hour session is a part of MU Extension’s “Promoting on the Farmers Market,” a weeklong webinar sequence working day by day from Feb. 7 to Feb. 11. For extra data, go to extension.missouri.edu/events/2022-selling-at-the-farmer-s-market.
CultivateKC and the West Central Missouri Group Motion Company will proceed to serve markets implementing Double Up Meals Bucks in metro Kansas Metropolis and west-central Missouri, respectively. For extra data, go to www.DoubleUpHeartland.org.
