CEO Corner: CalFresh Awareness Month
Celebrating Our Impact
Andy Naja-Riese, AIM CEO, May 7, 2022
The month of May marks CalFresh Awareness Month, the official month dedicated to increasing public awareness of CalFresh. CalFresh helps to improve the health and well-being of qualified households and individuals by providing improved access to healthy and nutritious foods.
CalFresh (federally known as SNAP) is a cornerstone of AIM’s Certified Farmers Markets and Farm-Fresh Nutrition Access Programs (including the Rollin’ Root and Bounty Box). It is one of the key strategies we use to promote access, affordability, and equity.
Our 2021 Impact
In 2021, AIM distributed $572,154 in CalFresh benefits (silver tokens) for the purchase of local foods and plant starts producing food at our certified farmers’ markets. In addition, we distributed $388,150 in Market Match (purple tokens) at our markets, a grant-funded program that provides incentives for free fresh fruits and vegetables. In total, that was $960,304 for equitable food access in 2021! To demonstrate the growth of this program, the amount in benefits in 2021 was 287% greater than 2018! The beauty of this program is that these sales go directly to the farmers and market participants.
To put things in perspective, AIM distributed more in SNAP/EBT food benefits at our farmers markets last year than the total value spent at farmers markets in 31 U.S. states! Wow!
Breaking It Down
To summarize the use of the program, we can also look to a recent week. Last week, we sold a total of $20,691 in EBT and Market Match tokens at our farmers markets on Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday purchased by 890 customers who swiped their EBT cards. Of them, 856 (96%) were repeat customers. We average about 127 EBT customers per market per day, and at Stonestown in particular, the team swipes approximately 58 EBT cards every hour, or about 1 transaction per minute throughout the market!
Working Towards Our Mission
We operate EBT and Market Match as part of our mission of a healthy, Earth-friendly, equitable local and regional food systems. In 2020, we worked with a grad student to conduct an in-depth field study of CalFresh & Market Match at our Alameda County and SF markets. Some of the highlights of the results show the program is working:
A vast majority of market survey respondents (96%) reported that the Market Match program is important for choosing the Farmers’ Market.
89% of survey respondents reported that they attend the market on a weekly basis.
66% of survey respondents reported that they had eaten more fruits and vegetables after participating in Market Match program at AIM’s markets; 73% of customers reported an increase in buying fruits and vegetables each week.
Two-thirds of our Market Match customers identify as BIPOC, with Asian and Pacific Islanders as the group with the greatest use of EBT and Market Match AIM’s markets.
Please join me in thanking all of our Market Managers, Assistants, volunteers, and Department of Rehabilitation trainees, who operate the CalFresh and Market Match programs every week. It’s no small feat and you are helping to create access by stretching the purchasing power of our community members and neighbors who want to put healthy food on the table.