SALISBURY — Fresh and locally grown produce and other products will be available to more thanks to the collaborative efforts of Rowan County Public Health, Healthy Rowan, Rowan Food and Farm Network and the Rowan/Salisbury Farmer’s Market.

Beginning Saturday, Sept. 21, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) benefits will be accepted at the market, located at the Railwalk Pavilion, 228 E. Kerr St., Salisbury. The farmer’s market is open from 8 a.m. to noon each Saturday.

The month that this new program will roll out at the market coincides with September being National Fruit and Veggie Month, said Dylan Mott, public health program manager.

“That’s kind of been our campaign for the month,” he said.

Mott has been the one responsible for obtaining the REACH grant, which stands for Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health, a CDC-funded program.

“This is exciting because the grant has been received through Cabarrus Health Alliance,” said Courtney Meece, community manager with Rowan County Public Health and executive director of Healthy Rowan. 

It’s a regional approach, she said, and other counties they have talked to that are working on this project already have markets that accept these benefits.

“So this is the first one for our county and so this is a huge win and we’re really excited that Healthy Rowan was able to contribute some of that funding to make it happen and then we can kind of see how it goes from there,” Meece said.

Carol Schmitz-Corken, president of Rowan Food and Farm Network, said they “are really excited about bringing the availability of SNAP/EBT to the Rowan Salisbury Farmer’s Market. It is so important for all Rowan County citizens to have access to fresh, local produce, as well as fresh eggs and locally raised meat.”

When asked about the benefit program beginning at the market, Leigh Anne Powlas, who serves as the farmer’s market manager, said, “I’m excited about it.” 

And while she said it would be a learning experience for her as far as “what we can do as a market to help those in our community,” Powlas did say that “with this program, it opens up doors for an opportunity for more people to have access to fresh produce.”

The process to get the benefits accepted began in May, and had been pretty quick, Meece said.

“We have been successful in launching a voucher program bringing (Women, Infants and Children) clients, Medicaid patients and seniors to the market,” added Schmitz-Corken. “This added feature will increase the accessibility to all EBT customers and help our local farmers out as well.”

Wanting to pursue this project, the Healthy Lifestyles group of the Community Coalition Healthy Rowan, created action plans, said Meece.

Noting that there are many farmers in the county and that agriculture is such an important aspect of the county, she said they “wanted to really create a way where people who are receiving those nutrition benefits, are able to purchase what is actually being grown locally so it’s creating that cycle of you’re putting money back into the community and giving people the opportunity to shop local produce and local meats.”

Other aspects of getting the program up and running included obtaining a permit, said Meece. The permit had to be issued through the USDA Food and Nutrition Service, added Emily Yates, a student working through UNC-Chapel Hill. Yates is responsible for working on an implementation guide and a return on investment booklet.

Mott noted that requirements must also be met for the market to have a certain number of vendors that consistently sell the items falling within SNAP qualifications.

Once the permit was obtained, a point of sale machine was purchased through the grant and find people to man the table at the market to take care of running the machine.

Meece said Healthy Rowan provided grant funds for the project to Rowan Food and Farm Network who would be tasked with hiring and compensating individuals for their time while they are working at the farmer’s markets and would take the lead on that aspect.

The point of sale machine, Mott said, is much like a credit card machine; therefore, those who want to use their benefits visit the table at the farmer’s market and run their EBT card and are able “to receive what we call script and that’s actually going to be like paper vouchers or money that they will actually be able to use and exchange that to the farmers for their goods,” he said.

“They can just come up and say, ‘I want $20 of script,’ and they run their card, and then we give them $20 and they can go and use it,” Meece added.

Just like at the grocery store, restrictions apply on certain items including alcoholic beverages, but the SNAP benefits can be used to purchase anything like fresh fruits and vegetables, meats, fish, eggs, dairy products, baked goods, honeys, jellies and jams, said Mott.

Powlas likewise mentioned some of the items found at the market which the benefits cover including honey, fresh breads, all of the meat products and eggs.

“I guess I’m just really excited to see how it changes people in having access to the market through the SNAP and EBT program,” she said.

According to 2019 data, which Meece said is the most recent reported by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rowan County had 12,194 individuals that were low income with low food access. She pointed out that this information is pre-COVID and five years old, but did say “there is a big need in our county.”

She also said that those who are on Medicaid are also eligible for SNAP, adding that Medicaid expansion just came to North Carolina in December, offering more people the opportunity to have benefits and adding a large number of individuals who could benefit from this new program at the farmer’s market.

Meece also added that those on Medicaid and who have a child younger than five are also eligible for their Women, Infants and Children department.

The farmer’s market continues through December and the organizations will be using this timeframe as a pilot session, like a soft launch, Meece said, ironing out anything that needs to be worked on, seeing how things are going and collecting data.

Access to the implementation guide will be available in November, Yates said. 

Therefore if others in the county that have farmer’s markets are “interested in implementing the same process, we would have a user guide so we could hand it over to them and say, ‘these are the steps that we took, this is what we found successful,’” Meece said, and for those that want to follow it, they would provide support in the process.

They also plan to continue this program when the farmer’s market gears up again in April, and will be working with Rowan Food and Farm Network to identify any possible grant opportunities to keep the process going, Meece said.

In addition to providing opportunity for getting the tangible items at the market, Mott shared other benefits to the program including health benefits, seeing economic growth and allowing people to see “that they can support their community that they are living in and working in as well.”

One aspect they wanted to highlight, Meece said, is that this program will come with opportunities for education.

“We’re encouraging people to go and get fresh produce, but what are they going to do with it when they get it. So that’s our jobs as health educators to be able to provide that education of how to prepare, how to safely store and what to do with the produce once they have it,” she said.

As of now, no classes are scheduled, but they will be working with the Healthy Rowan coalition and other organizations to provide resources such as recipes and cookbooks and hand them out at the market if people are interested, Meece said.

She also gave a shout out to Powlas and Schmitz-Corken, saying “they have been the rock stars.”

Schmitz-Corken said that eating local produce has long-reaching effects and provided 10 reasons to buy local.

They were: Locally grown food taste better; local produce is better for you; it preserves genetic diversity; it is safe; it supports local families; it builds community; it preserves open space; it keeps your taxes in check; it supports a clean environment and benefits wildlife; and it is about the future.

“I think that this effort is going to be very successful,” Meece said, noting that the whole conversation started with collaboration, which is going to be the key to its success and that they are “seeing the fruits of their labor in the fruits at the farmer’s market.”