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Voices for Healthy Kids Series: Making Nutritious Produce More Affordable in Five States

SNAP incentive programs are an important tool in promoting healthy food access. Find out how Voices for Healthy Kids is contributing to the enhancement and maintenance of SNAP programs around the nation.

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Every day, in communities across America, people with low wages face difficult trade-offs when trying to cover the necessary expenses of daily life. These trade-offs include balancing the costs of housing, health care, childcare and transportation, as well as the ongoing struggle to afford healthy food. In some neighborhoods, there may be very few or no places to buy healthy food, adding time and transit expenses to the price of groceries.

That’s why more than 45 states offer incentive programs to help Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants fill their pantries with more fruits and vegetables. Formerly known as food stamps, SNAP helps millions of people across America, including one in 10 families, buy groceries they otherwise could not afford. SNAP incentive programs help them stretch their food budgets so they can purchase fruits and vegetables more often.

In 2018, Voices for Healthy Kids provided grants to organizations in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, South Carolina and Washington to support policy campaigns to sustain, strengthen and/or expand existing SNAP incentive programs. Join us over the next weeks as we highlight these leaders and their successes. This edition features the Hawaii Appleseed Center for Law and Economic Justice.

Read their story here.

 

Help us share this story with the social media messages below!

  • #SNAP incentive programs are a win for farmers, grocers, and participants! Read about the great work being done by @Voices4HK grantee @HIAppleseed to make sure these programs stay funded! http://bit.ly/2VaewY2
  • “The benefits of making healthy foods more readily available is something that resonates with lots of people,” - @HIAppleseed’s Daniela Kittinger on #Fruit and #Vegetable incentive programs. http://bit.ly/2VaewY2