Farm Market Table: These Stories Support Food And Farms
Everyone has their own very intimate relationship with food: what to eat, what to refrain from eating, where to shop for food, how to prepare it. For our neighbors who are food-insecure — who don’t know where their next meal is coming from or how they’ll pay for it — this relationship is especially fraught.
Farm Market Table: A Night of Storytelling Celebrating the Power and Purpose of Food is the Great Barrington Farmers' Market’s (GBFM) way to help make food insecurity less common in Southern Berkshire County. Held at The Mahaiwe on Saturday, April 27 at 5 p.m., the GBFM’s first fundraiser is a chance for the community to come together to share stories and raise money for the Market’s nutrition assistance programs, which double SNAP (food stamps), WIC vouchers and Senior Farmers' Market Nutrition Program coupons throughout the season.
The evening’s storytellers will include Colfax Farm owner Molly Comstock; Dan Neilson, assistant professor of economics at Bard College at Simon’s Rock; chocolatier Doria Polinger of H.R. Zepplin; cheesemaker Susan Sellew of Rawson Brook Farm; storyteller Andy Davis; the evening’s host, Joey Chernila; and an open slot for one brave audience member. Tickets are offered on a sliding scale: $25, $12 and free for EBT card holders.
Since 2015, with the help of Berkshire Co-op, Jane Iredale Cosmetics and other community partners, GBFM has been able to double SNAP benefits up to $25 per market. That means that if someone spends $25 from their SNAP account, the Market gives them an additional $25 to use that day, doubling their buying power to $50. “All of that money is going back into our community, to farmers and food producers,” says Market co-manager Bridgette Stone.
In 2015, the GBFM processed $900 in SNAP. Since that first summer, Stone says there has been an increasing demand for nutrition assistance at the market. In 2018, SNAP sales topped $22,000, making up 20% of some farmers’ overall business. Now the Market is working to expand that success by doubling more WIC and senior vouchers. “We realized that certain groups weren’t coming to the market,” says Stone. “In order to meet those needs, we were able to expand that funding. We saw a huge increase in the amount of families using WIC at the market, and some increase in the number of seniors.” Stone says they’ve been working with the senior center to figure out how to make it even more accessible to local seniors on a fixed income.
“It’s about identifying the barriers and trying to remove them,” she says, “to make it as just and equitable as possible, because this space is designed for everyone.”
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