Steps to Health's PSE Toolkit: The Ingredients for a Welcoming Farmers Market

The Toolkit is designed to encourage farmers' markets on how to use best practices to create a thriving, inclusive, and healthy farmers market environment. It has been piloted at several farmers market sites.   Settings: Community-wide, Farmers Market  Age/Population Group: Pregnant/Breastfeeding, Parents/Caregivers, Adults, Older Adults, Unhoused  Race: All Ethnicity: All

The Toolkit focuses on teaching participants how to create a more welcoming farmers market environment by collecting data about the market to ensure it is meeting the needs of the community to improve healthy food access. The Toolkit also identifies strategies for how the farmers market can better meet the needs of the community so it's more accessible and affordable, with the goal of improving customers' health in the process. Components of the Toolkit include a resource guide, baseline, and follow-up assessments, market manager interviews, community food surveys, trainings for farmers market staff and volunteers, action planning tools, and promotional materials. The intervention components help farmers markets examine areas they can work on to ensure a more welcoming and inclusive shopping environment and identify clear steps to outline a timeline for reaching goals.

Intervention materials include:  Baseline and follow-up assessments  Market manager interview and community food survey  A resource guide  Training for market staff and volunteers  Action planning template  Promotional materials

The Toolkit was adapted from the Farmer's Market Audit Tool. It was further developed in collaboration with Steps to Health, NC State Extension professionals, and farmers markets. Extension professionals were targeted for implementing this Toolkit and as a result it has been piloted at several farmers market sites. Baseline and follow-up assessments, market manager interviews, and community food surveys were used to determine interest and need for PSE support to improve the farmers market environment. Feedback from Extension professionals, clients, and markets was used to make the Toolkit more concise for easier implementation, leading to shortened staff and volunteer training sessions based on feedback so they could be delivered in 30 minutes. Additionally, the toolkit was updated to reflect COVID-19 precautions including the addition of best practices for food safety and social distancing during COVID-19.   Using the Toolkit, Extension professionals in New Hanover County, North Carolina worked with the Wilmington Farmers Market at Tidal Creek to help address food insecurity by applying for SNAP/EBT (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) acceptance and the use of Fresh Bucks. Fresh Bucks is a program, supported through RAFI-USA funding, that allows SNAP shoppers to double their dollars at the market in order to buy more healthy, nutritious food for their families. Since the market started offering Fresh Bucks and SNAP/EBT in May 2019, it has doubled more than 500 SNAP customers' purchases which resulted in significant additional sales for vendors.  Evidence Base: Emerging

Based on the SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework, the following outcome indicators can be used to evaluate intervention progress and success.   Readiness and Capacity - Short Term (ST) Changes - Medium Term (MT) Effectiveness and Maintenance - Long Term (LT) Population Results (R) Individual         Environmental Settings ST5 MT5 LT5 , LT9 , LT10 Sectors of Influence       ST5: Completed needs assessments and documented readiness for changes in PSE  MT5: Successful implementation of PSE changes  LT5: Multi-level interventions including direct education, community involvement, and policy implementation  LT9: Increased in-kind resources (staff, volunteers, grant funding)  LT10: Developed sustainability assessments with action planning tools

The Steps to Health website includes links to more resources provided by NC State Extension's Steps to Health Program.   Contact Person(s):   Tammy Brunelle, M.A., CHES Email: tchaseb@ncsu.edu Phone: 919-515-9147