Double Up Food Bucks
DUFB has continued to see success with this pilot effort. West Village Market began participating in October as our second retail market. To date we have 233 participants adding 63 in this quarter. Over $4,600 of produce was purchased with the with DUFB matching funds! This is with very little promotion effort.
One of the biggest challenges so far has been related to what happens at the cash register with the point of sale software. DUFB participants are not able to complete a fully electronic transaction when using DUFB to purchase produce at the FBFC. The FBFC has been trying to address this with their software vendor but they have been very slow to respond West Village Market was able to have point of sale software customized for DUFB sales avoiding the challenge below with the FBFC and we hope to be able to address the FBFC challenges soon.
We are also excited to report that an application has been submitted by MountainWise to the USDA for a 3-year, $300,000 grant to expand DUFB in Buncombe and our western counties.
Food Security Collaborative
A subgroup of the Food Security Workgroup has been working to develop a plan for how to build a coordinated structure that allows us to share human resources and assets and to make referrals among our organizations as well as to appropriate safety net programs. The creation of a network structure via MOUs, operation guidelines and a shared measurement system will increase our visibility with community leaders and funders attracting new partners, funding and joint opportunities. These actions will increase the capacity and sustainability of food security partners and demonstrate the impact of our collective work to address food security. We also recognize that policy and environmental approaches can have a significant impact in addressing food security and our collective voice has the potential to strengthen our advocacy efforts.
A general action plan for the next 6 months, along with ground rules, a group agreement structure as well as a shared "elevator speech" and inital metrics have been developed for the next 6 months and Leadership Asheville is partnering with us to research existing models that we could apply to this process and will be presenting us with recommendations this spring.
We also look to be moving forward again with our larger circle of food security workgroup members around shared measures and collaboration for our nutrition education and skill building work.
Additional News and Activities
In preparation to increase technical support for data and evaluation, CHIP HIS staff worked with the Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council and UNC Asheville to host an RBA training. This will help the ABFPC prepare to implement and evaluate the City of Asheville Food Action Plan just approved by City Council. It will also enable UNCA faculty and students provide support with data needs of our CHIP partners. The training is already paying off. A few days after the training a DUFB program support staff meet with a UNCA student to map out a project for Spring Semester.
In early December, CHIP HIS staff help plan and host Increasing Healthy Food Access in Rural NC. Aproximately 30 public health and nutrition professionals from across the region learned about from federal, state and local experts on food insecurity and the policies and practices that impact that security as well as highlighting innovative projects happening in Western North Carolina and the lessons learned from each. Two CHIP partners, Ali Caparian from Bounty and Soul and Nan Kramer from MountainWise and DUFB shared their innovative programs.
