February - Workgroup Meeting Structure, Momentum and Exciting News

Thanks to all who responded to our brief questionnaire on how to structure our meetings moving forward!  The results show that: Monday afternoons appear to work for almost of of you with late afternoon and eliminating the 3rd Monday make it work for a few more. Meeting bi-monthly and combining the larger group with time for subgroup work was preferred by a majority. A few of you expressed a willingness to participate on a small leadership team.  I'll reach out and set up a meeting over lunch or coffee in the next month to explore what that might look like. Our next meeting will be the 4th Monday of March (3/27) from 3-5 at MAHEC in the Pisgah Room of the Education Building.   Moving forward, through the first of the year our meetings will be from 3-5 on the following Mondays... May 22 - Buncombe County HHS, Hughes Building July 24 - MAHEC Blue Ridge A September 24th (no location) November 27 - MAHEC Cherokee January 22 - MAHEC Pisgah These dates and locations can be found on the CHIP Calendar Strategy Group Updates:

A small team (Cory Jackson w/YMCA, Kate Justen w/FEAST, Cathy Hohenstein with NC Cooperative Extension and Terri March) have met several times to begin work on what was considered the next step in our Skill Building and Education Collaborative.  The team has created a very simple definition for what type of program would be included in this collaborative as well as drafted some shared questions that these organizations could use with their clients/customers.   The Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council with Bountiful Cities serving as the fiscal agent has been awarded funding by the Community Foundation of WNC for the Double Up Bucks initiative. The planning team, including numerous FS Workgroup members, has been meeting monthly to address logistics for the anticipated April roll out.  We are currently waiting to receive a required (and expected) waiver from the USDA to proceed.  Once that is obtained, the date for the program launch can be announced and we will begin sharing materials and information to get the word out to SNAP recipients as well as community agencies and organizations that can help spread the word.  The initial retail partners will be the French Broad Food Coop and Mother Earth Produce.  The planning team is already working identifying future retail partners and on securing funding for expansion leading up to a USDA grant application in 2018.