RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Recent Match now provides a program that rewards individuals who use SNAP or EBT playing cards at farmers’ markets or sure grocery shops.
This system, referred to as VFM Match, guarantees customers that for each greenback spent utilizing SNAP, they are going to get the identical quantity matched. They will use it to purchase contemporary produce, in accordance with John Montgomery of Dorey Park.
“And this is only one manner to verify everybody has entry to these regionally grown greens,” Montgomery stated.
VFM is doing this in an effort to fight meals insecurity, which has been an ongoing downside in Richmond for years. A examine by Feeding America states that roughly 15.eight% of Richmond residents are meals insecure.
Montgomery, who runs a farmers’ market in Dorey Park, plans to battle the issue additional with little SNAPS, permitting folks with kids to earn much more cash.
“In the event that they used $20 of SNAP advantages, they’d get an additional $20 to spend on contemporary produce on the market,” Montgomery stated. “Now they’ve $40, and on prime of that they get an additional $10 for as much as two kids.”
Little SNAPS is on the market to everybody who already receives SNAP advantages, in accordance with Montgomery.
Montgomery encourages everybody who qualifies to make the most of each and test together with your native farmers market or neighborhood grocery retailer to see if they provide it.
“I noticed households with wagons leaving and heard feedback from households saying they’ll come right here and get the contemporary produce they should increase what they get in any other case,” Montgomery stated.
The Dorey Park Farmers Market runs each Saturday from 9am to midday and lasts from June by means of October.
