Subsidy helps food stamp recipients buy seeds

Of the nearly 750,000 people who live in Louisville, 17 percent or 127,500 individuals, rely on food stamps to purchase groceries. Helping these same customers grow their own food by purchasing seeds or seedlings via their food stamps is a new initiative by the nonprofit Louisville Grows.

Beneficiaries of food stamps, also known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, can legally purchase seeds or seedlings in order to grow their own food. By late March or early April, Louisville Grows expects to offer seeds, starts or both at seven area retailers like Rainbow Blossom markets, in addition to their "First Annual Seeds and Starts Sale" April 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the People's Garden Greenhouses located at 536 N. 44th St.

The program allows for payments by food stamps, via the state-run EBT debit card, for purchase of $1 seed packets filled with late spring and early fall crops like spinach, peas, carrots, radishes, beets, lettuce mixes, pumpkins and assorted greens.

Louisville Grows staff and volunteers have already begun cultivating small plants that will retail for $1 each, including green beans, yellow squash, zucchini, melons and cucumbers. Even seeds for flowers that attract pollinators like bees and butterflies to the garden are eligible for purchase via food stamps. These include echinacea, black-eyed Susans, zinnias and Mexican sunflowers.

The average food stamp benefit per month is $251 per household, according to 2014 data collected by the Kentucky Cabinet for Health & Family Services. In order to qualify to receive food stamps, a household of three can have a net monthly income of no more than $1,650, according to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture's 2014 Program guidelines.

While little known, the ability to buy seeds and starts with food stamps can help food stamps go farther in cash-strapped households, program volunteers say.

"For $2 to $3 you can buy tomatoes at the store with your EBT card, but if you get a plant, you can get tomatoes all summer long," said Reggie Price, 64, a volunteer with the gardening collective working in the Shawnee, Russell, Portland and other Louisville neighborhoods. The People's Garden in Shawnee began in 2011, while the Shippingport Memorial Garden at 2500 Montgomery St. in Portland began in 2013.

Last Saturday, Price joined Louisville Grows staff and community volunteers to plant seeds in trays, mix soil, haul cedar shavings and lay down mulch in preparation for the upcoming gardening season inside greenhouses at the People's Garden.

"It is really neat to know somebody is going to eat some wholesome food and get up and function," Price said of the food stamp program that is an offshoot of neighbors who have formed a community maintaining individual garden plots at Louisville Grows gardens around the city. "We are starting to build a network."

Besides Rainbow Blossom, Louisville Grows is making arrangements to sell the seeds, young plants or both via other retailers who accept food stamps for payment, said Valerie Magnuson, executive director of the nonprofit. Other retailers coming on board include the Pic Pac Grocery, 2421 W. Market St.; the Reynolds Grocery Co., 1813 Frankfort Ave.; and Shawnee Market, 228 Amy Ave., she said.

After the April 25 big sale, consumers also can purchase plants at the People's Garden Greenhouses every Wednesday between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Magnuson added.

Rainbow Blossom natural markets around the city and the Rainbow Blossom farmers market at the St. Matthews store all accept EBT cards and will be selling the seeds and starts cultivated by Louisville Grows, said owner Summer Auerbach. Gardening funded by food stamps can help consumers eat healthier on a budget, because organic and locally grown foods tend to cost more, she said.

"We have a lot of people who are truly living on a shoestring budget who are trying to eat well or eat ethically grown food," Auerbach said. "There are so many people who really don't have the means but who make this their number one priority."

Growing your own food, she added, "is the first step to really connecting with what you eat."

"The type of people who are growing their own food are the type of people who will come back and understand and appreciate locally grown food," she said. "And when we say why broccoli is more expensive, they will understand."

Louisville Grows volunteer Keith Jones, 39, lives near the People's Garden and brought his three sons Saturday to help plant seed trays and mix soil for the food stamp program. In the community garden outside the greenhouses, Jones said, he and his family tend a plot where they grow collard greens, broccoli and cabbage in the spring before transitioning to squash and tomatoes in high summer.

"You can sustain yourself and eat just as healthy as someone who makes a lot more money than you," said Jones, a city firefighter. "I just want people to know you can do it if you plant it and give it a little bit of hard work."

Jere Downs can be reached at (502) 582-4669, Jere Downs on Facebook and @JereDowns on Twitter.

LEARN MORE

For more information about Louisville Grows:

•See their website at www.LouisvilleGrows.org

•Or call the nonprofit directly at (502) 681-5106