Did you miss us?!
We are sorry we have been quiet on this portion of the website for a little while, but we are back with regular updates, stories and photos from your hometown market! For starters, we’d like you update you on some goings on with our food sharing programs:
It is incredible to believe, but in Lancaster County – an area of such incredible abundance – nearly 9 percent of residents experience food insecurity. The largest demographics in that percentage taken of our neighbors are children and the elderly. The Central Market is uniquely positioned to stand on the front lines in the effort to combat food insecurity among our fellow Lancastrians, and we are thrilled to report on some tremendous growth in our SNAP and After Market Programs.
With the extraordinarily generous support of High Foundation we launched our SNAP program Market-wide earlier this year, and then a SNAP Double Bucks program. This means SNAP shoppers’ dollars go even further at Central Market (the Double Bucks program matches dollar for dollar, up to $30 in SNAP vouchers), and we are seeing fantastically encouraging data on the beneficial effects this is having – not only for our low-income neighbors, but in additional sales for our Standholders. Since we launched the program in November, just shy of 30 thousand dollars in Central Market SNAP vouchers have been purchased, and the program continues to grow. A handful of our Standholders had previously taken SNAP payments over the years, but with the market-wide launch there has been a 626% increase in customers using their SNAP dollars at Market. In December, the Market did 38 SNAP transactions for 19 customers with 12 repeat visits – and in July that increased to 238 transactions for 119 customers, with over 10 times the number of repeat visits. There have been nearly 300 repeat shoppers since the start of the program, and we are helping over 700 unique Lancaster families close the disparities in access to healthy food. We are incredibly grateful to High Foundation for their generosity, and we are both humbled and delighted at the enthusiastic reception these programs have received.
We have also seen growth in our Kathleen L. Peck After Market program. Standholders that have goods that will not still be fresh the next Market Day can choose to donate those items to After Market. Participation in the program is free and the food is available for anyone who needs it. What was once more of a quieter affair, every Tuesday and Saturday now sees a long line of folks eager to avail themselves of After Market goodies – piles of bread, cartons of tomatoes, and boxes of fruits and salad greens. We not only love to see our less fortunate Lancaster neighbors getting to partake in some of our healthy foods, we also are very happy that viable food doesn’t just wind up in the trash. This program has the dual benefit of serving our fellow Lancastrians close the gaps in food disparity and benefits the environment by keeping fresh food out of our landfill.
Check back soon for more updates from Central Market!
