Press releases are posted on Independent.com as a free community service.
In light of the USDA freeze on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs or SNAP (previously known as food stamps), Route One Farmers Market has launched the Route One ‘Help a Neighbor’ program.
The mission of Route One, a nonprofit, is to increase food access for all in our community. We work to create platforms for our local farmers to sell produce, and offer them to community members at affordable prices.
One important way we do this is by accepting EBT benefits at the farmers market and doubling the first $15 customers spend (EBT stands for Electronic Benefits Transfer).
Since launching this program in 2019, Route One has facilitated almost $100,000 in local food and produce EBT sales at our market. This means $100,000 of federal dollars stayed in our community, fed our families and enabled those dollars to become income for our small local farmers, benefiting our local economy.
The freeze on EBT funds will drastically affect millions of people across the United States, including more than 5.5 million in California, and likely be devastating at the local level. In California, 63.2 percent of SNAP participants are children or elderly; this is reflected in our customer base at our Route One market on Sundays.
From “Popular Information” via Substack:
“Children, people with disabilities, and the elderly disproportionately benefit from SNAP, with households with these individuals receiving “83 percent of SNAP benefits during fiscal year 2023.” Children made up 39 percent of SNAP participants in fiscal year 2023 with “SNAP serv[ing] a monthly average of 7.3 million households with children,” according to the USDA.”
Route One’s farmers and those who feed us will also lose out on income usually generated by the use of these incentives, and be negatively impacted by this freeze.
If you would like to support our mission and help us continue to get local food to the people who need it, please consider a donation to our new “Help a Neighbor” program. Every dollar donated will be allocated towards funds for local food sales. Thank you for your continued support of Route One! We recognize that we are only in a position to help our neighbors in some small way because of our wonderful customers, partners and dedicated community.
Read more on The Santa Barbara Independent
