City to expand SNAP rewards programs in BK
COURIER LIFE, MARCH 19-25, 2021 21
BY ROSE ADAMS
The city is looking to pair
needy New Yorkers with
struggling small businesses
through an innovative expansion
of the Supplemental Nutrition
Assistance Program
— giving money to economically
burdened citizens that
can be redeemed at local momand
pop shops throughout the
Five Boroughs.
The new program, which
utilizes federal dollars recently
granted by President Joe Biden’s
administration, will help keep
food on the table for city dwellers
while providing for participating
grocery stores, such as
Three Guys from Brooklyn on
the border of Bay Ridge and
Dyker Heights, said the leader
behind the effort.
“We want to increase participation
in this program to
benefi t New Yorkers more,
while also supporting small
businesses, like Three Guys,
as well as farmers and farmers
markets,” said Michelle
Morse, the deputy commissioner
for the Center of Health
Equity and Community Wellness
and chief medical offi cer
of the city’s Health Department.
The two new programs,
Get the Good Stuff and Health
Bucks, allow SNAP recipients
to redeem extra spending
money for fresh and frozen
produce every time they
purchase healthy items. For
Health Bucks, participants
can get a $2 coupon for every
$5 spent at farmers markets,
while Get the Good Stuff allows
recipients to get an extra
dollar to their card for every
dollar spent on fresh, frozen,
canned, and dried fruits, vegetables,
and beans at participating
grocery stores.
Shoppers with food stamps
can collect up to $10 of incentives
per day using Health
Bucks at farmers markets,
and up to $50 in incentives per
day using Get the Good Stuff
at supermarkets.
Under the four-year program
expansions — which
were funded by a $5.5 million
grant from the United States
Department of Agriculture —
the Health Department will
add 80 more grocery stores to
the Get the Good Stuff program
by working with the city’s task
force on racial inclusion and
equity to identify the neighborhoods
hardest-hit by COVID-19
and income inequality.
The grant will also fund the
added benefi ts to the Health
Bucks program. Rather than
getting a $2 coupon for every
$2 spent at farmers markets,
SNAP recipients can now get
$2 coupon for every $2 spent.
The additional stores and
incentives hope to help locals
struggling with food insecurity
amid the COVID-19 pandemic,
which has not only
caused unemployment rates to
skyrocket, but also makes access
to a whole and healthy diet
more important than ever.
“We’re really, really honored
to be awarded this funding
because this is such a unique
program. We know that New
Yorkers are suffering tremendously
from the inequities that
have come with COVID and the
economic downturn that has
come with COVID,” said Morse
at a press conference outside
Three Guys from Brooklyn.
An owner of Three Guys
from Brooklyn, a participating
grocery store on the corner
of 65th Street at Fort Hamilton
Parkway, said that the
program has helped bring in
customers and boost revenue.
“About 20 percent of our
sales comes from SNAP, so
the program goes very far
here,” said a managing partner
at the shop, Philip Penta,
who added that the Get the
Good Stuff program gradually
gained traction.
“It took a little while for it to
catch on, but we’ve defi nitely
seen an increase in people
coming in to use it,” he said.
As of October 2020, there
were nearly 2.8 million SNAP
recipients across New York,
an 8 percent increase from the
same month in 2019, according
to the state’s Offi ce of Temporary
and Disability Service.
Expansions to two SNAP incentive programs aim to make fresh and frozen
produce more accessible to in-need New Yorkers. Photo by Rose Adams
Health
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