A student reflects on her time at GardenShare

One of the students taking part in the Community Based Learning program at SLU, reflects on here time at GardenShare...

When picking out which community service I wanted, I wasn’t sure which assignment appeared most appealing to me. There were a lot of choices that stuck out to me. However, with the little I knew about the GardenShare, I knew it would be a good fit. Throughout my high school education, community service had always been an important part of my life. Ever since middle school I have been volunteering at my local food pantry, named The Acord Food Pantry. For my Community Based Learning aspect of class, I volunteer my time at the GardenShare. The GardenShare is an organization, whose main goal is to make healthy fresh produce, more readily available to those in the St. Lawrence County.

More specifically, one of their major roles in the community is participating at the farmers market in Canton. At the farmers market, they have a tent set up where people can use their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and a plastic electronic benefits transfer (EBT) cards. SNAP is a federal program, formerly known as food stamps, that provides monthly benefits to eligible clients on their EBT cards. GardenShare has set up a program where SNAP clients can use their EBT SNAP card at the Canton farmers’ market in order to gain access to healthy locally produced food options. At our tent, clients can use their EBT SNAP cards and receive coins each worth one dollar. In turn, these coins can be used to purchase fresh produce at the farmers market. One of the benefits of visiting the GardenShare tent at the Canton farmer’s market is that GardenShare is currently doubling the amount of money the clients are asking for. For instance, when a customer comes up with their EBT SNAP card and asks for 10 dollars, GardenShare will only charge them 10 dollars, however the client will receive 20 dollars’ worth of tokens. With this incentive, GardenShare is hoping to encourage the EBT SNAP users to purchase fresh and local food.

My time so far at GardenShare and specifically the farmers market has been more than valuable. It is here, that I learned how prevalent poverty is in the North Country. By attending a wealthy University, where communication off campus is limited, not everyone realizes what Canton is truly like. By working with GardenShare, I now know, and have witnessed firsthand how appreciative members of the community are when college students pay attention to the town they are living in. With this newfound knowledge of the community, I am better able to interact with the customers I work with, and attempt to understand the rest of the community. I learned to understand and acknowledge that everyone’s situation is different, and that there are varying degrees of poverty. However, I also learned that being sympathetic and patient is one of the most effective ways to be respectful and enact change into the community around you.  

                                                   - Lindsay Campbell

FARM BILL MAY HURT FARMERS’ MARKETS

Despite America’s growing love for farmers’ markets, it’s looking unlikely that the Farmer Markets Promotion Program (FMPP) will be prioritized when the Farm Bill comes up for reauthorization next year. The president’s proposed 2018 budget eliminates funding for the FMPP. The program awards grants that support outreach and promotional activities that help farmers markets become self-sustaining and that can be replicated across the country. Since it was first funded in 2006, the FMPP has helped the number of farmers’ markets in the U.S. more than double from around 3,000 to over 8,600. Farmers’ markets sell around $3 billion in food annually, including nearly $20 million redeemed by SNAP shoppers.

Source: Civil Eats, 10/30/17, Farmers' Markets in Trouble

FARM BILL DYNAMICS

The Farm Bill expires on Sept. 30, 2018. Passing a new bill in the next year will require a coalition that cuts across parties and regions. But the bill’s trillion-dollar size produce plenty of critics who create fault lines that could derail the bill, which is currently being drafted by the House and Senate agriculture committees. One of those fault lines is the urban-rural coalition of farm-state Republicans (who back farm subsidies) and urban Democrats (who protect SNAP). But rural Republican support is no longer automatic. House Freedom Caucus members have backed deep cuts to the program in budget resolutions. Work requirements and other means of tightening the program, all billed as ways to ensure that SNAP aid is targeted to the most deserving, will divide GOP support. Some Democrats are more absolutist on SNAP than others. Pragmatists, including the ranking Democrats of both the House and Senate agriculture committees, will tolerate some changes to the rules to get a bill through. More strident advocates resist any reductions. This division weakens the Democrats’ united front. And the food stamp community itself has divisions. Many nutritionists support dietary restrictions for SNAP use as a way to encourage better eating. But the big grocers that support SNAP don't want those rules, which complicate business and could cut into sales.

Source: Bloomberg, 11/2/17, Farm Bill Dynamics

Support GardenShare when you shop online

While we'd always prefer that you shop locally, we know that sometimes in the North Country that just is not possible.

When you need to shop online do it at smile.amazon.com/ch/16-1607595 and Amazon donates to Gardenshare.

VETERANS USE SNAP

Many veterans face challenges transitioning to civilian life, and some need income, nutrition, and work supports to make ends meet. Poverty among veterans has slowly increased over time. The rate varies significantly between states, ranging from 3.7% in Connecticut to 20% in Puerto Rico. Among disabled veterans, there’s a striking gender disparity; 15.3% of women and 9.4% of men are currently poor. Nearly 1.5 million veterans live in a household receiving SNAP.  In 2015:

• Around 7% of veterans lived in a household receiving SNAP at some point in the year; of those, 1 in 5 had a child in the home.
• Younger veterans (ages 18-34) were more likely to live in a SNAP household than older veterans.
• Black  and Hispanic veterans were more likely than white veterans to live in a SNAP household.

Source: Center for Law & Social Policy, 11/9/17, Veterans & SNAP

WHICH FEDERAL PROGRAMS PROVIDE THE MOST SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN?

Most federal support for children doesn’t come from classic children’s programs like Head Start, but from Medicaid, nutrition assistance, and tax credits—programs more often associated with adults. In 2016, the federal government spent $377 billion (10% of the $3.9 trillion federal budget) on children through programs and refundable tax credits.

An additional $108 billion in tax reductions was targeted to families with children, bringing total federal expenditures on children to $486 billion. At $89 billion, Medicaid is the largest source of federal spending on children. The next three largest programs are tax provisions: the earned income tax credit, the child tax credit, and the dependent exemption. SNAP is the fifth-largest source of expenditures on children, providing $31 billion in benefits in 2016. Child nutrition programs, including the school lunch and breakfast programs, provided another $22 billion.

Source: Urban Institute, 10/31/17, Federal Support for Kid

SCREENING FOR FOOD INSECURITY

What is the best way to screen for food insecurity? The 18-item U.S. Food Security Scale (USFSS) is the gold standard, according to a recent editorial in the American Journal of Public Health. The tool was developed after five years of extensive testing, consultation, and expert review.  Its length, however, makes its use in most clinical settings impractical. The first two questions in the USFSS, commonly known as the Hunger Vital Sign, ask how often within the past 12 months “we worried whether our food would run out before we got money to buy more,” and “the food we bought just didn’t last and we didn’t have money to get more.” Recent research has shown the Hunger Vital Sign to be both a sensitive and specific tool, and thus reliable is ascertaining whether a patient is food insecure, but only if the screener asks both questions and gives the patient 3 response options: “often true, sometimes true, or never true.”

Source: Children’s Health Watch, 11/2/17, Food Insecurity Screening