Food stamps will literally go further than they used to at the Pendleton Farmers Market.
During July, the market and Umatilla County Public Health will offer up to $10 in matching funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients who buy fruits, vegetables and other unprepared foods at the weekly market.
Hal McCune, the nonprofit’s president, said the farmers market has accepted SNAP benefits, better known as food stamps, for the past 10 years,
“It really gives some of these folks a lot more buying power than they used to have,” he said.
McCune said market patrons spend about $800 in food stamps every month in an exchange system where money from the SNAP electronic benefits transfer card is exchanged for tokens that can be spent at market stalls.
SNAP users typically save the last of their monthly allotment of benefits for the farmers market, McCune said, but the matching program will allow them to potentially double the budget they can spend at the market.
“It’s like Christmas in July,” he said.
According to a market…
