BY SAM VISE
FOR THE OBSERVER
OPELIKA — The O Grows Farmers Market in Opelika is now accepting SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), which provides food to low-income families, seniors and individuals with disabilities.
More than half of SNAP participants are families with children, and roughly 37% are households with seniors or people with disabilities.
SNAP also offers a vital support system during and after economic challenges, second only to unemployment insurance in its responsiveness, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The federal government covers the entire cost of SNAP benefits and shares the administrative expenses with individual states that use SNAP.
Opelika Grows, or O Grows, encourages gardening and related programming to address the issues of food security and localized food systems while providing fresh food for the community.
O Grows began in 2012 as a school garden program within Opelika City Schools.
“To be frank, the more we got into it and the longer we were here, the more we kind of recognized that, like most communities, Opelika has got a community food security challenge, if you will,” said O Grows Director Sean Forbes. “So, we moved from really promoting outdoor experiential learning to this mission of cultivating local food knowledge and relationships to really encompass community food security.”
O Grows now includes gardens and experiential learning lessons for students at six schools, a community garden, greenhouse and a farmers market.
The farmers market is held at Courthouse Square (1103 Glenn St., Opelika) each Tuesday from 4 to 7 p.m. Visitors can find locally grown produce, fresh-baked goods and more.
O Grows started the process of being approved to accept SNAP in January of this year, according to Garrett Antonio Martinez, farmers market manager for O Grows.
“There’s another market in the area, Rising Gardens [Community] Market, and they actually are the ones who started using SNAP in our area,” Martinez said. “I was like, ‘We need this in Opelika.’ So, we started with that process. We got approved back in June through the USDA, and then we’ve been working with a program [at Auburn University] called the Hunger Solutions Institute, so they’ve got us a lot of the physical equipment.”
The Hunger Solutions Institute within the AU College of Human Sciences is also responsible for the Double Up Food Bucks Alabama program. This program helps people using SNAP get more fresh fruits and vegetables. The program offers incentives at participating stores and farmers markets across the state of Alabama.
Here’s how it works: For every dollar a SNAP participant spends on fresh fruits or vegetables, Double Up Food Bucks Alabama gives them a matching dollar. This matching dollar comes as a coupon or token they can use to buy even more fresh produce at that same store or market.
“When people come to [O Grows Farmers Market], they will be able to double their SNAP dollars, up to $40, specifically for produce — fruits, vegetables, those sorts of things,” Martinez said. “We’re really excited. We are hoping that this will increase our ability to get fresh, local products to more members of our community at a more affordable price.”
O Grows’ partnership with Auburn University is in part thanks to Forbes, who has been on AU’s faculty since 1999. He said O Grows’ mission is to cultivate local food, knowledge and relationships.
“In terms of both SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks, customers will come in, residents will come in and they’ll check in with us at the tent,” he said. “We’ll be able to swipe their EBT card for SNAP and then give them these tokens. The customers will take these tokens to the vendors, and the vendors then will give it back to us, we’ll let them know how much they got, so we’ve got to reimburse them.”
O Grows plans to start the Double Up Food Bucks program in August.
“One of the reasons that we got it was for our vendors to be able to expand the number of people that they’re able to sell to, but also for our community,” Martinez said. “Being able to use SNAP, you know I hear from many of our community members, they’re like, ‘Oh, farmers markets are just for rich people’ or ‘It’s expensive to go there,’ and it’s like, no it’s not. Our prices are competitive with your grocery store. The quality is way better, and money is staying in your community.”
Martinez said his main goal regarding O Grows accepting SNAP is to break down barriers to food security.
“If we can take down barriers to people being able to come to our market, we want to try and take down as many barriers as possible, so people being able to use SNAP, community members being able to use SNAP — we see that as hopefully taking down a barrier, opening up a way for more of our community to be able to come out there and pay it more ways that are accessible to everybody,” he said.
Forbes said he and the entire O Grows team are excited to roll out this program and hopes the community has a positive response.
“I’m super proud of the fact that we’re able to do this,” he said. “It’s good for vendors, good for our residents. It’s good for education, for everybody to learn a little bit more about SNAP. We’re trying to grow our market, but we’re also mindful that our market is not just about the commerce side of it. It is about the community in the broadest sense.”
The introduction of SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks at the O Grows Farmers Market marks a step toward improving food security in Opelika, embodying O Grows’ core mission to cultivate local food knowledge and relationships, ensuring that healthy, nutritious food is within reach for all members of the community.
To learn more about O Grows, visit their Facebook page or the website: www.education.auburn.edu/eflt/outreach/ogrows.php.
