Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program Partners
The Partners
The program Farmers Market Nutrition Program (FMNP) is a program that provides fresh, nutritious, unprepared, locally grown fruits, vegetables, and herbs from Pennsylvania farmers’ markets to WIC participants and eligible seniors. The benefits of this program here in Pennsylvania come with understanding the value of being able to provide fresh local produce to our community members while supporting our local agricultural economy.
REACH Team in Action
The REACH team surveyed 100 WIC participants through Lebanon Family Health Services. In our partnership with LFHS, we’ve implemented a weekly “grab bag” program by building a partnership with a local farmer so participants could easily and conveniently redeem their vouchers. The grab bags offer a variety of FMNP-approved produce for $4 and $6 grab bags at the WIC Office at Lebanon Family Health Services. Each grab bag includes healthy recipes that included the produce sold at LFHS for participants.
The Impact
Published Manuscript in Sage Journals: 2023: Implementing Locally Tailored Strategies to Promote Redemption of Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program Vouchers Among WIC Participants in Central Pennsylvania https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15248399221112453
From the Journal
“In conclusion, our work demonstrates the value of community–academic partnerships to identify and implement feasible strategies that are responsive to local needs and promote existing programs supporting greater access to affordable produce. Innovative approaches like the Farm-to-WIC initiative may present important opportunities to improve healthful nutrition for priority populations and support local farmers sell their produce. Our work shows the resilience and creativity of our community partners to implement chronic disease prevention strategies despite the many challenges posed by the pandemic as well as the need to nurture and sustain the infrastructure that is essential to advance public health ” (Lavinghouze et al., 2014).
