The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP) is committed to creating strong farms, thriving local food economies and healthy communities where farming is valued as central to our heritage and our future. A grant from Dogwood of $100,000 helped to increase both the scale and sustainability of ASAP’s Double SNAP for Fruits and Vegetables across the region, allowing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients to double up to $20 worth of local fruits and vegetables at participating farmer’s markets. This program has introduced more community members to farmer’s markets, stretched food budgets, improved health and increased economic opportunity for local farmers.
ASAP is also focused on educating young people about locally grown food through their “I Tried Local Toolkit” for preschool – 2nd-grade educators, which features 10 crops that can be grown and sourced locally, ranging from blueberries to mushrooms to sugar snap peas. ASAP also has funding available for K-12th grade educators who want to implement farm-to-preschool/school projects with “mini-grants” used for school garden projects, farm field trips, cooking in the classroom and more.
