Photo courtesy of Paige Burns Clark
Richmond Fresh boxes delivered to the Ellerbe Grove Community.
Whitney McLaughlin
Extension @ Your Service
In May, NC Cooperative Extension, Richmond County Center, received a grant from Resourceful Communities to finance and support the Richmond Fresh program. This 12-week program provided boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables on a weekly basis to four low-income communities experiencing food insecurity in the county.
This program was developed as a response to the impact of COVID 19, as businesses shut down and many people were unable to access or pay for healthy food. Forty families were recipients of the Richmond Fresh boxes over the 12 weeks of operation. The Sandhills AGInnovation Center (SAIC), a produce aggregation and processing facility in Ellerbe, spearheaded the program.
Richmond Fresh was just one of several programs for which the SAIC was packing produce boxes and delivering across the Sandhills. For several months, Extension staff, including their summer intern, and volunteers packed hundreds of boxes to help facilitate distribution of healthy produce across the Sandhills. Recipients of the Richmond Fresh boxes completed surveys and participated in interviews to help Cooperative Extension gauge the impact of the program.
Participants overwhelmingly indicated that the program was very beneficial and played an integral role in their ability to access fresh fruits and vegetables over the 12 weeks the program ran. From the surveys, all 40 participants indicated they felt “satisfied to very satisfied” with the program, and 97% of survey respondents felt that they ate more fruits and vegetables as a result of receiving the weekly produce box.
In addition to community members benefiting from the program, local farmers have also benefited. The COVID-19 pandemic has delivered a devastating blow to the agriculture industry and it continues to disrupt the food supply chain across the country. Programs like Richmond Fresh have been valuable to Sandhills farmers who lost markets due to the pandemic and it has helped other farmers expand their markets. These types of grant-funded programs can help boost the morale of farmers as it shows the community values their products and their hard work. This is especially needed in times of crises when regular food distribution channels are uncertain, and farmers who produce a highly perishable product must find a market or take a severe financial loss.
Ultimately, the goal is to create a win-win where families in need receive fresh, healthy food and local farmers are able to find good markets for their product. The 2019 Richmond County annual Health Assessment reveals that Richmond County residents rank 95th out of 99 NC counties in Health Outcomes and 99th in Health Behaviors (which includes healthy eating and physical activity, as well as negative behaviors such as smoking and drinking alcohol).
These low rankings point emphatically to the need to increase opportunities for individuals to have access fresh fruits and vegetables as a critical part of improving health outcomes. In order to make projects such as Richmond Fresh sustainable, a concerted effort from stakeholders and community members is needed. It is work NC Cooperative Extension is excited to be involved in. Who will join us?
The Link LonkAugust 08, 2020 at 06:55AM
https://www.yourdailyjournal.com/features/95785/richmond-fresh-makes-an-impact-on-community
Richmond Fresh makes an impact on community - Richmond County Daily Journal
https://news.google.com/search?q=fresh&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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