Locally Produced Food To Those in Need: You Can Help!

Give one dollar, provide TWO in locally-produced, healthy food

Floyd Farmers Market food stamp program allows Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries to use their electronic benefits card at the Market on fresh produce and local foods. The program has been so successful that more funds are needed to sustain the program this year and be able to hit the fertile soil running next summer. Here’s the story in a nutshell:

SustainFloyd and the MD (MultiDisciplinary) Team secured funding to start the Bonus Value Coupon Program as part of a Childhood Obesity Prevention Specialist Grant.

We used that funding much faster than anticipated, because food stamp recipients embraced the opportunity to buy fresh, local produce. The program is now out of funds.

SustainFloyd created and administers the program and is now supporting the Bonus Value Coupons out of its operating budget. SustainFloyd does not charge to administer the program and volunteers work at the market each Saturday to keep it running smoothly. 100% of your donation (actually 200% when combined with SNAP) goes to Floyd families and Floyd farmers. Read more on the SustainFloyd web site.

Mail your donation to:

The MD Team, c/o Lori Kaluszka, PO Box 283, Floyd, VA 24091 with checks indicating “Floyd SNAP.” Or stop by the Market on Saturday mornings and make a donation at our Information Table.

NOTE: Click on the banner image above or at the SF website and go to PayPal so your donations go directly to the SNAP program in Floyd County.

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fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  2. Thank you so much, Kathy. It is a great effort, and if we succeed in gaining another grant we’ve applied for, it will turn out to be $3 for every $1 in EBT credits.

    SustainFloyd has been a victim of its success, having obtained more than $300k in grants, none of which comes with admin support dollars. Our single staff person, the director Mike Burton, can’t do everything that needs doing, and a few volunteers (including a few of us on the board) are getting pressed pretty hard.

    So we’re hoping to make a wider local appeal (plus some other capacity-building grants we’re working on) will help us do a better job with in-org coordination, PR, and grants administration.

    Not a committee animal by nature or history, I’m in full bore on this one.

    I was about to write about Bill McKibben’s arrest within the past hour at the Tar Sands demonstration in DC. It was his visit to Floyd (and my 30 minutes sitting next to him at breakfast upstairs in the Floyd Country Store) that brought me into the fold a couple of years ago. The man walks his talk. We all should.

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