Market coins mean carrots and peas and healthy living

To encourage kids to eat healthy, what’s better than a visit from a giant pea pod and a human-sized carrot?

At Columbia Falls Junior High last week, Columbia Falls FoodCorps coordinator Mary Rochelle donned a pea costume, and school counselor Shari Johnson stepped into the carrot outfit, to hand out red plastic coins redeemable for $5 worth of local produce at the Community Market.

The students can visit the market to spend their coins, and at the end of the evening, Farm Hands will collect the coins and reimburse the cash value to the vendors.

Rochelle spends a lot of time trying to connect schools to healthy food. As a member of Farm Hands Nourish the Flathead, she also helps out with the garden club Johnson founded, gives nutrition lessons, and teaches cooking.

Farm Hands is a nonprofit community organization that strives to connect people to food sources and farmers through education, outreach, and farmers’ market support. Among other projects, they help run the community garden in Columbia Falls and sponsor youth programs.

But Farm Hands is doing something new in Columbia Falls with the coin program.

Thanks to the Whitefish Community Foundation, Farm Hands started the program in 2016. Last year they distributed 670 coins to Muldown Elementary students, and this year they’ve expanded the program to all Whitefish commuter students and to Columbia Falls junior high.

At the junior high, Rochelle and fellow Farm Hand Gretchen Boyer gave out $5 coins to students of all ages. These coins can be used at the weekly market at the Coop to purchase fruits and vegetables, plants, gardening necessities like soil, or meat, eggs, and cheese – essentially, anything fresh and locally-produced.

“It’s just a good opportunity for them to meet farmers and understand where their food is coming from,” Rochelle noted.

Many students in the junior high garden club have already conveyed to Rochelle and school counselor Shari Johnson that they want to start their own gardens this summer.

Farm Hands also partners with the local farmers markets to provide $10 incentives in the form of “Double SNAP Dollars” to all participants in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – the program formerly known as food stamps.

Double SNAP Dollars can add about $400 per summer to a SNAP recipient’s food budget while supporting local farmers in the Flathead, the Farm Hands website notes.

Boyer also encouraged Columbia Falls senior citizens to take advantage of coupon booklets, worth more than $20, available at both markets.

To get the coin program off the ground in Columbia Falls, the Community Market donated $1,000.

“One of the missions for this year’s market was to appeal to our younger demographic. How can we create a market where those age groups are welcomed? How can our youth participate in stimulating local commerce? Can they even gain an appreciation for locally grown produce or locally handcrafted items?” O’Brien Byrd, the market owner, said. “Specific to Farm Hands, we wanted to educate them on the health benefits as well as the satisfaction of buying local produce.”

Boyer thinks the market is a great way to promote health for the students.

“We’d been looking for ways to access kids and encourage them to choose healthy food,” Boyer explained. “We thought if they could make their own choices, it might spark something in them.”

And the Flathead Valley is a great place to promote food access and healthy choices, Boyer said, because of its robust farming heritage.

“There’s plenty of healthy, reasonably-priced produce for everyone,” she noted.