Virginia Fresh Match, which allows people to double their SNAP benefits on fresh produce in partner locations, has lost its federal funding this year. But the organization still retains its funding from the state. WMRA’s Ayse Pirge has more.
ELIZABETH BORST: Virginia Fresh Match is a network that’s been around for quite some time.
Elizabeth Borst is the director of Virginia Fresh Match.
BORST: We’ve been operating now as sort of a collective of farmers markets, and grocery stores, and farm stands, and mobile markets that work together to provide access to fresh fruits and vegetables for folks using SNAP.
She says they had federal funding since 2018 through the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, also known as GusNIP. The program grants funding for projects, including ones that help people increase their produce purchases through SNAP benefits.
BORST: We applied for another round of funding in 2026 and did not receive that award. So, again, we’ve had consistent funding for a number of years, and, you know, this is not a great thing… but it was very, very competitive round.
Jess McClelland, the communications manager for Virginia Fresh Match says they are still in a really strong place financially.
JESS MCCLELLAND: We are very fortunate to have the support of the General Assembly. They allocated a million dollars to our program this year. And so we’re gonna have… no disruptions, thankfully, in our programming.
McClelland says their SNAP participants are not going to notice a change in the programming.
MCCLELLAND: And the farmers and businesses that we work with are still going to be able to get fully reimbursed for the amount that they discount.
Borst, the director of Virginia Fresh Match, says that while the federal funding is exclusively for SNAP, they had hoped to use some of their state funding with additional flexibility, because the number of people enrolled in SNAP is decreasing. The number of people enrolled in SNAP in July this year was around 122,000 less than July of the previous year.
BORST: Those people are not necessarily any less hungry or in need of fresh fruits and vegetables in their diet. So, we’d love to have a flexibility to… continue to work with those populations, but perhaps in slightly different ways.
The Virginia Hunger Survey, which was commissioned by a partnership between the Virginia Department of Social Services, the Virginia Federation of Food Banks, and No Kid Hungry Virginia, found that the percentage of Virginia households experiencing food insecurity is over 40%. In much of the Valley and parts of Central Virginia, the percentage is slightly lower.
Jon Henry, a Virginia Fresh Match partner and the owner of Jon Henry General Store in New Market, says they participated in Sun Bucks this past summer, which is a USDA program that gives families with children who are low income access to more food in the summer.
HENRY: And again this summer we saw, like a historical high demand from families. And a lot of these families, it was the first time they’d ever received financial assistance. And that’s kind of the story we’re hearing from more and more families.
In the WMRA region, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank is distributing record amounts of food to keep up with demand, as well as increasing partnerships with places such as schools to reach communities.
