PORT TOWNSEND — A $10,000 Love Your Neighbor grant will be used to improve food security, according to the Jefferson County Farmers Markets.
The grant, which was received through the Love Your Neighbor donor-advised fund managed by the Jefferson Community Foundation, will help Jefferson County Farmers Markets (JCFM) respond to the end of emergency food benefits offered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, according to Amanda Milholland, JCFM executive director, in a press release.
JCFM operates three food access programs extending federal food benefits of community members experiencing food insecurity: SNAP Market Match, the Women Infants and Children (WIC) and Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) Match.
Additionally, JCFM works with Jefferson Healthcare and the Port Townsend Food Co-op to offer a fruit and vegetable prescription program, VegRx, which provides $20 per month (while supplies last) to children up to 18 who receive Apple Health.
“Together, these programs combat hunger in our community by extending the food budgets of local folks with low incomes,” Milholland said, while encouraging them to buy from local farms.
In 2022, about 800 households used JCFM food access programs, bringing home more than $100,000 in locally grown and made food from the Port Townsend and Chimacum farmers markets, she said.
SNAP Market Match, funded by a U.S. Department of Agriculture GusNIP grant, as well as the state Legislature, is administered by the state Department of Health and serves more than 120 farmers markets around the state.
The WIC/Senior FMNP Match program and VegRx are community supported with sponsorships from Jefferson County businesses and individual donations, as well as through a Give Jefferson grant. Sponsors include Jefferson Healthcare, Kristin Manwaring Insurance, 1st Security Bank, Kitsap Bank and the Food Co-op.
Facing a global pandemic and economic downturn, Congress approved the expansion of SNAP benefits for all recipients starting in April 2020.
Additionally, the Pandemic Electronic Benefits Program, or P-EBT, was enacted to provide food to school-aged children in response to the disruption of school nutrition programs.
These temporary food benefits helped lift 4.2 million people above the poverty line, effectively reducing poverty by 10 percent and child poverty by 14 percent nationally as of the last quarter of 2021, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“The grant from the Love Your Neighbor comes at a critical time,” Milholland said.
At the end of October 2022, Washington lifted its pandemic emergency status, and May 11 marked the end of the federal public health emergency, she said. The SNAP emergency allotment and P-EBT benefits ended in February.
“The end of the emergency SNAP allotment and P-EBT has resulted in a benefit cut for every SNAP recipient across 32 states of the U.S., including Washington,” Milholland said. “While families who received P-EBT stopped receiving benefits altogether, SNAP benefits are back to pre-pandemic levels.”
Cuts to individual SNAP benefits are between $90 monthly for recipients with the lowest incomes and $250 for higher-earning SNAP recipients, she said.
According to the 2020 U.S. Census, about 14.2 percent of Jefferson County residents — about 4,772 people — live below the federal poverty line.
“Our local poverty rate is 4.3 percent higher than the state average,” Milholland said.
“While poverty impacts people of all ages, children make up the single largest group of people experiencing poverty in our community, accounting for 32.7 percent of those living in poverty in Jefferson County.
“Children, working families, older adults on fixed incomes and many other neighbors are feeling the impact of these cuts.”
With grant funds from Love Your Neighbor, JCFM has added up to $10 per shopper per day to the food budgets of people using SNAP at the Jefferson County Farmers Markets since May 20, Milholland said.
“This $10 benefit is in addition to the dollar-for-dollar SNAP Market Match (up to $25 in match per shopper per day) offered all season at the Port Townsend and Chimacum farmers markets,” she said.
Every person spending SNAP benefits at the Jefferson County Farmers Markets will get an extra $5 in JCFM’s Gimme5 currency. This extra $5 is not connected to how much shoppers spend with the intent to benefit all SNAP recipients who shop at the market, including those who are back to a minimum monthly disbursement (people may receive as little as $15 per month in SNAP benefits).
Additionally, when a shopper spends $30 on a SNAP/EBT card, they will get another $5 in Gimme5 and dollar-for-dollar SNAP Match of $25. In total, shoppers spending $30 on their EBT cards will get $25 in SNAP Match and $10 in Gimme5 — a bonus of $35 to spend with local Market farms.
Visit the JCFM website at https://jcfmarkets.org for more information.
