Fresh Food Funding for All

Charmaine Miller

Since getting to the White House, First Lady Michelle Obama has stressed the importance of making fresh and healthy food available in city neighborhoods.

The city’s farmers’ markets have shared that goal, putting in place programs to encourage some of the area’s poorest shoppers to use their food stamps and other food vouchers to buy fruits, vegetables and other nutritious products.

The White House Farmers’ Market on Vermont Avenue NW, which got started in 2009 with the help of the First Lady is one of several markets across the city where food stamp beneficiaries can exchange dollars on their electronic benefit cards for wooden tokens that can be spent like cash at the farmers’ stalls.

At several other city markets, including the 14th and U Street market, a rewards program gives up to $10 worth of “bonus bucks” to customers using food stamps or benefits from the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) or Senior “Get Fresh” programs, allowing them to buy more fresh fruits and vegetables with their nutrition assistance dollars.

Robin Shuster, 14th and U Street market director said that she and her team are working to make the markets accessible to everyone in the District by making food voucher acceptance a priority and the efforts are paying off.

“We’re seeing a lot of people taking advantage of it ” said Shuster.

Image of the NoMa farmers' market.
The NoMa (North of Massachusetts’s Avenue) neighborhood farmers’ market operates Wednesdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. | Photo by Charmaine Miller

A fruit and vegetable prescription program that is being piloted at the Columbia Heights and 14th and U Street markets is also targeting needy families in desperate need of healthy food.

Area clinics have identified 35 low-income families in the District with members who are at risk for diabetes or heart problems. These families are prescribed $1 worth of produce a day, per member in the family. This means they can have $7 worth of food per person by the time the weekly markets roll around.

“It can really make a difference in how a family eats,” Shuster said.

The prescription program will be in effect for six months. Afterwards, doctors will test patients to see if there are improvements in their health such as changes in their body mass index (BMI) scores.

“We’re finding that most of the 35 families come to Columbia Heights,” said Robert Schubert, executive director of the Columbia Heights Community Marketplace, which holds its farmers’ market every Saturday morning.

The market accepts all forms of federal nutrition assistance and has a program to match benefits up to $10 per person. The market’s own “Festibucks,” funded by its sponsors and donors, offers matching incentive dollars toward the purchase of healthy foods. Over $17,000 worth of Festibucks were distributed in 2011, according to the Marketplace’s website.

Schubert said that many families are embracing these opportunities. The system at the Columbia Heights market is not only helping low-income people to stretch their benefits, but is also helping local farmers and food producers.

However, not all D.C. area farmers’ markets have been as accessible to the poor.

Some vendors at Eastern Market admitted they were not sure what the process was for accepting food stamps. A stand called Sunny Side only accepts WIC coupons.

Salespeople at the Knopp’s Farm booth stocked with fresh tomatoes, melons and sweet corn said didn’t take food stamps at their Eastern Market location but use a token system in Baltimore.

“I’ve only had a few people ask, maybe one a day,” said Robert Knopp, owner of Knopp’s Farm.

The NoMa (North of Massachusetts Avenue) Farmers’ Market, located at First and M Streets, NE, started accepting food stamps this summer. Spokeswomen at the NoMa market information stand said it was a relevant decision that would prove useful for customers in the area.

Luis Reyes, clerk for Pleitez Produce at the NoMa Farmers’ Market, said not many customers have asked if the vendors accept food stamps. One woman who didn’t have access to an adequate cutting knife did ask for a watermelon to be cut up, though.

Even if they can use their food stamps at the market, very poor and homeless people may lack places to store or prepare their fresh produce.

Berries and some other fresh fruits and vegetables may spoil quickly or easily get crushed in a backpack. In fact, many kinds of produce need to be refrigerated or cooked in a timely manner.

Evelyn Nnam, a Street Sense vendor, said she has never been to a D.C. farmers’ market, mostly because the produce would be difficult to keep fresh. With an eye to addressing such barriers, some organizations around town, such as Miriam’s Kitchen, work to turn donated food items from the markets into healthy meals for city residents who lack the facilities to do their own cooking.


Issues |Living Unsheltered


Region |Washington DC

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