by Michelle Boudin

Jan Johnson runs Charlotte’s popular Uptown Farmers Market and knows just how dire things could soon be for thousands of Mecklenburg County residents and area farmers. The federal government shutdown means that SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits will not be available as of this weekend, potentially leaving an estimated 140,000 Mecklenburg County residents with little or no access to groceries.

“Do people really want to see lines at soup kitchens and food pantries? People are beginning to ask what they can do, and I’m grateful,” Johnson says.

To help fill the hole the loss of federal funding for SNAP creates, local leaders are pulling together a plan to make sure Charlotteans on food stamps get access to fresh food, and the farmers who provide the produce continue to get paid for it.

That’s why there is a giant popup screen on the landing page for the Charlotte Mecklenburg County Food Policy Council with an urgent message. The nonprofit is trying to make sure thousands of Mecklenburg County residents don’t go hungry this weekend.

People typically use their food stamps at grocery stores and area farmers markets, where they can buy fresh produce. At some farmers markets, SNAP recipients can actually double their money, thanks to the county-funded Double Bucks program. With no food stamps coming from the federal government, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Food Policy Council partnered with the Mecklenburg County Public Health Department to use the Double Bucks money that is already set aside to offer EBT beneficiaries $50 each week throughout the month of November to spend at any of five designated area farmers markets. According to the Food Policy website, this incentive will allow SNAP recipients to continue shopping for fresh and local foods at participating farmers markets despite the disruption in federal benefits. This pivot will also preserve the program’s intent to support local farms and farmers markets. (The five farmers markets are the Charlotte Regional Farmers Market, Uptown Farmers Market, Davidson Farmers Market, Matthews Community Farmers Market, and the South End Farmers Market.)

Samantha DeRosa runs Farmers Market Management Services, a nonprofit that oversees three Charlotte farmers markets, and says not only are SNAP users going to be impacted but so will many others. 

“It’s a source of income that’s being removed for our farmers and the market will get less as well. The dollar amount we would traditionally see by SNAP users, we’re not going to see. But it’s really the farmer’s income that’s being hit, so we’re doing what we can to support them and reducing their fees for the next few weeks.” 

DeRosa says she feels like most people don’t understand what’s about to happen. 

“People in the community have no idea, they really do not grasp how much this affects so many people and even the SNAP recipients — the majority of them as of last weekend when they were at the farmers market, did not seem to be making arrangements, they didn’t even realize they needed to.”

DeRosa says she is heartbroken knowing so many people are suddenly being forced to seek out alternative food sources. “I feel powerless,” she says. “I am very concerned because it is just a complete shut off. There was no slowing of a valve, it just went from on to off and a lot of people just haven’t had the opportunity to make arrangements to support themselves in another manner or find supplements. It’s not just the SNAP users, it’s also the people they spend those dollars with, like the farmers.” 

Johnson says at the Uptown Market alone, they bring in about $100,000 a year from SNAP users, with most of that money going to area farmers. Each week, she and her team also raise funds to buy what’s left from the farmers and then donate that produce to Nourish Up, one of the city’s largest food pantries. Last year, Nourish Up fed more than 164,000 people in the Charlotte area, but this year the nonprofit food hub says they’ve seen a 20 percent spike in pantry visits because of furloughed government workers. On the Nourish Up website, their CEO Tina Postel says, “Nourish Up and the nonprofit sector as a whole do not have a superhero cape big enough to cover this crisis the federal government has created.” 

HOW TO HELP

“The biggest thing people can do is donate to a food pantry because people who are SNAP users, that’s where they’re going to go,” DeRosa says. “If you’re at the Uptown Farmers Market, they have a donation station. You can also donate money at a farmer’s market and that’s a really obvious way to see that fresh food is going to be purchased with your donation and then distributed to the people being impacted by this.”

Donate to area food banks: Second Harvest Food Bank and Nourish Up are two of the biggest ones in the area.

Host a Food Drive: Rally your community to donate shelf-stable food items.

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