Waushara Food Connections Meeting Notes – April 21, 2016
Waushara County Courthouse, Room 25
Present: Deacon Bob Precourt, Patrick Nehring, Trevor Cooper, Marty Lee, Zina Soltis, Bruce Runnels, Everett Eckstein
Call to order at 2:30.
Wautoma and Redgranite Community Garden
The Wautoma Community Garden at Grace United Methodist Church is ready. A little needs to be done to get the Redgranite Community Garden by Saint Mark Church ready, including adding a little more compost to the garden boxes. The agreement to use the Redgranite Community Garden is available at the Saint Mark Parish Office.
Trevor will create flyer with pictures from Zina and Deacon Bob to promote the gardens. Marty will promote the gardens at the food pantry. She will contact the trailer park in Redgranite about promotion of the community garden. Marty and Trevor will work on finding contacts for the apartments. Deacon Bob will look into the possibility of mailing directly to the trailer park and apartment residents through the post office.
Farm stand promotion and accessibility, including using EBT/Quest Card
There is some funding through United Health Care and the Salvation Army to assist in obtaining the equipment to use EBT Cards at a farm stand. Zina and Marty have reached out to Flyte Farmers to find out their interest using the equipment to allow payment with an EBT Card. Zina and Marty will contact other farm stands in the county about use of EBT Cards. Zina will be contacting: Fresh For Life Organics, Robert Heath Farms, and Russell Farm Market. Marty will contact Decker Family Vegetable Farms, Flyte Family Farms LLC, Flyte Family Farm, and Gramma Miller’s Farm Market. Senior vouchers and WIC vouchers, similar to a check, can be used at some farm stands in the county, so accepting EBT Cards may not be a big departure from some current practices.
Patrick is working on an option to show the location of food stands in the county on a map. The Farm Fresh Atlases out for Stevens Point and the Fox Valley will continue to have more information on their maps. There is a fee to be listed in these Farm Fresh Atlases. Committee members are asked to identify farm stand locations in the county that are not on the current list.
Other projects
The Waushara Commodities Food Pantry in Wautoma is interested in obtaining a 24 foot refrigeration truck with a lift. They are also looking for a larger location. In addition to locating these, they are looking for ideas of funding sources or grants to pay for them.
Patrick and Zina described the Community Food Challenge Simulation, an interactive program to help people relate to the struggles associated with obtaining nutritious food on a budget.
Next Meeting
The next meeting will be June 9 at 10:30 in the Waushara County Courthouse.
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