Community members reflect on Double Up Food Bucks Program, decreased funding

Orange County farmers markets participate in the Double Up Food Bucks program, which doubles the dollar of purchases made by SNAP/EBT recipients. The program is available in more than 25 states and is offered at over 900 participating locations across the country. 

The Double Up Food Bucks program was adopted with the intention of incentivizing the use of SNAP/EBT at farmers markets, as well as addressing the barriers of using those benefits at the local level, Carrboro Farmers' Market Manager Maggie Funkhouser said.

Marquette Cates, the coordinator for the Triangle area's Double Up Food Bucks program, said the program matches the value of all purchases made at the farmers market using SNAP/EBT with market-exclusive tokens. For example, he said, if a SNAP/EBT recipient wanted to spend $20 of their EBT card, vendors would give customers $40 worth of tokens to spend at the market.

“I personally see excitement in the customer’s eyes when they see that they can make their EBT dollars stretch more than they could if they were to go to the grocery store,” Cates said, “Turning $60 to $120 or $100 to $200, it just means the world.”

Program impact

Melissa Cada, a manager at Eno River Farmers' Market, said the program allows people to shop for nutritious food when they otherwise could not afford it. This is especially important given the dramatic reductions in SNAP/EBT benefits offered to food insecure people by the federal government, she said.

“It’s so wonderful to see these people be so happy because they can come to the farmers market and they don’t feel marginalized at our market,” she said.

Angel Alexander, a beneficiary of the program, used to receive $200 per month worth of SNAP/EBT benefits and now receives $23per month. She said she is grateful for the program because she can receive twice the amount of her reduced benefits. 

Alexander said she would never have access to fresh fruits and vegetables if it were not for the program. Her experiences at Eno River Farmers' Market are always heartwarming and it is one of the only good sources of food for limited-income individuals, she said.

“There are a lot of people — kind of like me, with limited income — that if they didn’t get some help like that they would be really short of food, because I just don’t have enough to go around every month,” Alexander said.

Funding challenges

However, Cates said the funding initially received for the program is now depleting and the Triangle’s farmers markets are relying on community aid and smaller grants. To mitigate this, he said the markets are capping the amount of EBT dollars beneficiaries can double to $50. 

Funkhouser said farmers markets across North Carolina — including the Double Up Food Bucks program — struggle with sustainable incentive funding.

The depletion in funding for the program will impact people’s livelihoods, Cates said , limiting the ability of SNAP/EBT recipients to shop for produce, meats and more at the market. He said he encourages community members to donate through the market's GoFundMe to support the maintenance of the program at Orange County farmers' markets.

Funkhouser said that last year, the Carrboro Farmers' Market made almost $100,000 in sales through the program, allowing the market to divert the federal money into the local economy.

“I just want to be able to give those families the continued opportunity to shop at our market, just like everybody else,” Funkhouser said.

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