Taking your Oregon Trail card on the road

The last few years have been tumultuous for all of us. For customers participating in food benefit programs, the recent road has gotten even bumpier. February 28, 2023 saw the end of the additional pandemic relief funding assigned to SNAP and EBT cash programs, which starts at a minimum of $95/month per household.  At a moment when feeding your family the same staples costs more money than it has before simply due to inflation, this dramatic decrease in benefits is hitting our community hard.

At Hillsdale Farmers’ Market, we offer a match program to stretch that reduced grocery budget further. Shoppers with an active Oregon Trail card can come to the information booth at the north end of the market and withdraw funds directly from their account. It is as easy as swiping the card at a grocery store, but with a serious bonus. Our market participates in both the Double Up Food Bucks program and the EBT Produce Match program, which function very similarly. For the first $20 of funds withdrawn, the market can give customers an additional $20 in voucher currency to spend. 

For example, if you come to the info booth and use your SNAP or EBT card to access $16 from your account, we will you give you additional $16 in vouchers that you can spend on fruit, vegetables, dried beans, and vegetable starts. This will give you twice the spending power you might have received otherwise, just for shopping at the farmers’ market.

For the Double Up Food Bucks program, participants receive red wooden SNAP tokens, in $1 increments. These represent the dollars withdrawn from your SNAP account, and can be used to purchase any food or drink items at the market. These tokens do not make change. The matching funds, in the form of paper vouchers (below), also do not make change. The vendors at our market are familiar with these regulations and will bundle your items to make easy shopping with the currency you have.  

These regulations are very similar to the EBT Produce Match program. Participants swipe their card, and in return receive black cash tokens, in $5 increments, to spend with any vendor at the market. The biggest difference is that these black $5 tokens do make cash. If you were to use a black $5 token to purchase $3 worth of honey sticks, the vendor would then hand you two $1 bills in change. The EBT Produce Match (below) vouchers do not make cash, just like the Double Up Food Bucks vouchers. 

Our staff and vendors are very familiar with the Double Up Food Bucks and EBT Produce Match programs. We are here to answer your questions, help you discern which items are eligible for which currencies, and discuss strategies for making those extra dollars really work for you and your family. 

We are passionate about this program because of how many different parties benefit. Not only do customers receive more money to shop with, but farmers make more sales! One of our goals as a market is to get more produce into more homes, and both Double Up Food Bucks and EBT Produce Match help make that possible. It’s easy, fast, and serves both you and your community. Come visit us this Sunday and see how much further your money can go at the farmers’ market.