In the past our county residents had limited access to fresh produce and then we had another farmers market commence we now have two. However, that alone was not enough to increase access to the fresh produce as a 27% of our families with children are below the poverty line and 15.7% of 65 and over below poverty line this means they can’t afford them.

The other problems were our community health and wellness 23.2% in poor health , 35.9% with hypertension,42%obesity, and 8% with diabetes. 1,429 residents receiving SNAP 1,080 who are considered food insecure.

The County extension had secured Senior Vouchers for farmers market in 2016 which has made some progress towards more access to fresh produce but younger families were still struggling. So last year the Nutrition Education Assistant with the help of one of the farmers markets and the health coalition set up a Fresh Produce day at the local Food Pantry.  They handed out fresh fruit and vegetables once a week for 8 weeks over 4 months of the market season. We surveyed pre and post 35 clients on improved access to local fruit and vegetables, whether this program increased their fruit and vegetable consumption and improvement in their eating habits all results were positive. The ANR Agent also introduced a prescription program where the residents could go to the pharmacy and as long as they had the qualifying health issues they could be prescribed vouchers for fresh fruit and vegetables from the farmers market. This is had limited success because not many knew about it.

So with these results and after talking to the Health Coalition which funded these projects this year the Family and Consumer Science agent and NEP Assistant decided to set up another program to assist younger families with access to fresh produce. We ran a family, food and fun program at the Fresh Produce days at the food pantry for 3 of the 8 days, the other fresh produce days for remaining 5 weeks the NEP Assistant ran Nutrition classes. We served on average 37 clients but purchased less produce to donate because other vendors donated and we advertised the prescription program which saw 99% new clients in 2019 and an increase in program completion. Other clients are now participating in the health department diabetes 101 classes at our extension office. This seems to be a win-win situation the increase in participation means we are spreading the word.