U.S. Dept. of Agriculture
If AdkAction and Hub on the Hill win approval of their new, online shopping software, some of the neediest families in the Adirondacks will have easier access to safe, affordable, locally-grown food, officials say.
The software that AdkAction has created with a developer is aimed at SNAP recipients, people who get federal help through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly “food stamps”).
The software will allow people to use their SNAP accounts to order and pay for groceries at The Hub on the Hill, a market in Essex that helps local farmers extend their market reach and share resources such as an industrial kitchen and storage facilities. The member farms have been helping get food to families since the start of the pandemic.
AdkAction’s Executive Director Brittany Christenson said the group applied in October to have their software approved for use by the federal Food Nutrition Service, which runs SNAP.
“We’re waiting on the final approval and welcome package,” Christenson said in an interview yesterday. “We don’t know what the holdup is.” She added that she knew the Department of Agriculture has a lot on its plate with COVID responses and thought the wait was a slow-down at the department, not a serious threat to the application.
Roughly 20,000 people in Clinton, Essex and Franklin counties use SNAP, a post on the AdkAction blog says. AdkAction is a nonprofit with a mission, among other targets, to revitalize Adirondack communities. Part of this is to help families get the food they need. To be eligible for SNAP benefits, a family of four can have a gross salary of only $2,839 per month, about $34,000 per year.
Early in the pandemic, AdkAction and the Hub worked together to bring “emergency food packages” to those in need.
“So many of the farmers around here, if they weren’t growing the food, they wouldn’t be able to afford it themselves,” said Katie Wilson, a marketing and business development consultant with the Hub.
Since then, the groups have shifted to “farm fresh packages” with pricing to help low- and moderate-income families, Wilson said. The food is subsidized through donations and grants.
At about the same time last year, with help from AdkAction, the Hub applied for and was approved to take SNAP benefits in payment.
Anyone can apply to take SNAP, Wilson said, but, “It’s a ton of red tape."
The approval opened the way for the Hub, again with AdkAction, to buy the handheld card readers which work like credit card scanners and can take SNAP's EBT card payments.
The devices allowed Hub's delivery people to take payment remotely, such as at a person's house when making a delivery. But that came with its own troubles, the blog post says.
First, patchy, slow cell phone access in the rural areas of northern New York made the card readers less effective. Second, delivery drivers had to take cards, standing within six feet of customers.
The new software that is awaiting approval will lessen the need to use the handheld devices since people will order and pay online in their homes. No-contact delivery will be the norm, the blog post says.
Wilson said, “Especially during COVID, that would be a huge plus.”
The software development program is part of the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot program, run by the federal FNS. It's a two-year program.