Progress 09/15/23 to 09/14/24

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for the project is Illinois SNAP recipients shopping at participating Illinois farmers markets and grocery stores. Changes/Problems:Our major challenge at this moment is budgetary. Asudden provision of hard won funding from the State of Illinois has upset our plans to spend down GusNIP and GusCRR funding in the coming year. As noted above, we are currently devising a multi-year plan that will include extending both federal awards by another year, while ensuring sustainable program growth over time. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Link Up Illinois provides a variety of opportunities for training and development for partner firms, individual farmers and vendors selling at farmers markets, store personnel,and our own staff. All firms (especially farmers market and other direct-to-consumer partners) are trained in SNAP rules generally, best practices for accepting SNAP, and all aspects ofimplementing a Link Match program at their location. All managers are trained in data collection and how to report data to Experimental Station/Link Up Illinois, while brick and mortar store personnel are trained in how to implement the program at the point of sale (distribution of incentives, redemption of incentives, and how to talk about the program with customers). Farmers and vendors are trained on an ongoing basis throughout the farmers market seasonin which products are SNAP eligible, which products are Link Match eligible, whether or not change may be given for any of the currencies accepted by the market, etc. The farmers market management is key to ensuring that rules for accepting SNAP benefits and Link Match incentives are properly enforced. Link Up Illinois staff have the opportunity for paid professional development in the course of the year, while Experimental Station administrators continue to receive professional development training in government grant management. In the past year, given the significantly greater complexity of our finances, and with the need to ensure continuity in our financial recordkeeping, Experimental Station has employed an outside accounting firm (GEM Numerics) to provide professionalbookkeeping and grant management services. We have all learneda lot from them! How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?In spring 2024, Experimental Station created the 2023 Increasing Food Access Report, providing both an introduction to the Link Up Illinois program as well as collected data reflecting program gains. The 2023 Increasing Food Access Report was shared broadly with stakeholders of all types, including all Illinois state lawmakers, each of whom received a personalized letter with their hard copy. The Report was also shared with federal lawmakers, Link Up Illinois partners and partnering firms, funding partners, and the general public. It is available on the Experimental Station website at www.experimentalstation.org/resources, and is available in hard copy upon request. Experimental Station also produces a statewide guide to farmers markets, grocery stores, mobile markets, and delivery services that accept SNAP and offer Link Match. 60,000 copiesin English and Spanish were distributed to partner firms, the Illinois Department of Human Services (which administers SNAP and WIC), City of Chicago offices, and other agencies. It was also available via digital distribution. Experimental Station/Link Up Illinois staff shared program results and impacts throughout the year at numerous stakeholder meetings and at local, statewide (e.g. Illinois' Everything Local Conference), and national conferences (e.g. NIFA convening in December 2023and the Academy of Food Law & Policy, Chicago convening fall 2024). What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?With newly available state fundingin addition to thisGusNIP award, in the next year, Experimental Station will be developing a multi-year plan to grow our Link Up Illinois program sustainably, while ensuring participation of both direct-to-consumer and brick and mortar firms in all parts of the state. Having invested in significant backend infrastructure enhancementsin the past year, we also look forward to learning how these enhancements improve partner firms' user experience anddata tracking and reporting. Experimental Station plans towork with two new Link Up Hubs to expand implementation of SNAP and Link Match to low-capacity farmers markets in their regions. In total, the four Link Up Hubs will support SNAP and Link Match implementation at more than 20 markets, with Link Match funding provided by Experimental Station. In total in the coming year, we aim to provide funding, training, and technical support to 115-125direct-to-consumer locations, up from 110. In 2025, we also anticipate expanding the number of brick and mortar locations from 22 to 28-30.Our first neighborhood grocery store partner, Cermak Fresh Foods, will be launching Link Match at 2 additional stores in the coming months, while we aim to partner with Tony's Fresh Markets to offer Link Match at2-4 stores, with the possibility of a Yellow Banana/Save-A-Lot expansion to 1-2 more stores. An important goal in expansion is to ensure that we are also doing so in non-Chicago areas of the state. In July, we will carry out the NTAEsurvey of SNAP customers shopping at designated Illinois farmers markets. Surveys will be offered in English and Spanish, with the possibility of adding Mandarin Chinese. Dr. Chelsea Singleton, Assistant Professor in the Department of Social, Behavioral, and Population Sciences at Tulane University's School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine will provide analysis of the data. Throughout the summer, we will carry out a statewide television, streaming, and train/bus marketing campaign for Link Match. The campaign will also include the publication and distribution of a 2025 statewide brochure 'GET MORE WITH LINK MATCH at Illinois Farmers Markets, Farm Stands, Food Co-ops, Grocery Stores, Mobile Markets, Delivery Service, and CSAs.' In partnership with key stakeholders throughout Illinois, beginning in November 2024, Experimental Station will lead a process to create an Illinois Food System Plan for increasing the production and distribution of Illinois non-commodityfood crops. In addition to a statewide meeting held on January 28,2025, we will hold 3-4 regional convenings around the state from February to June to gather information about existing infrastructure, new initiatives currently being undertaken, and infrastructural gaps and needs. We aim to bring as many voices to the table as possible, from farmers to policy advocates. In June, we will present a report to the State on our findings.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? 1. With growing interest among brick and mortar retailers in our Link Match program, Experimental Station is working to establish a sustainable growth model that both allows us to employ the federal and state funding we are now receiving, but that also ensures continuity in the Link Match program at participating firms. During this reporting period, Link Up Illinois' partnership with Albertson's Jewel/Osco expanded to offer Link Match at 3 additional stores, currently totaling 7.Although the partnership with Yellow Banana has taken significantly longer than they anticipated, this year we were able to launch Link Match at their newly reopened Save-A-Lot store on Chicago's west side. While they are excited about expansion to a number of additional locations, we have learned that their eagerness is not a reflection of their ability to get a program off the ground. During the reporting period, we have also begun to work with Tony's Fresh Market, another brick and mortar retailer with more than 15 stores in the Chicago region that also has experience operating a nutrition incentive program at their stores in Texas employing a discount incentive model.It is of interest to see how well adiscount model works (1/2 of the cost deducted at the point of sale),whether SNAP customers are aware of the Link Match discount/program, and whether they feel that their health has improved as a result of the program.We will be initally targeting up to 4 of theirstores located southwest and northeastof Chicago. 2. During the reporting period, we have been able to expand our Link Up Hubs from 2 to 4, adding Goshen Market Foundation in western Illinois and the Greater Wabash Food Councilin southeastern Illinois.Southeastern Illinois is an area of the state with high food insecurity and high need for food systems infrastructure. We are excited to be working with a partner in that corner of the state. Although the fourth Hub was intended to be Cornucopia Community Development of NW Illinois, in the end they did not have the needed capacity. We anticipate that the two new Hubs will bring up to 7markets to the Link Up Illinois network in the coming year. Although the Hub model has been successful in bringing a number of low-capacity markets to the Link Up Illinois network, we also spent significant time in the course of the year assessing the Hub model and whether it is sustainable in the long term, or whether the model should be altered. Those discussions are ongoing. 3. Thanks to USDA and Illinois Department of Human Services support, Link Up Illinois was able to provide Link Match at over 120 locations in Illinois in 2024, enabling more SNAP clients in more parts of the state to gain affordable access to the freshest and healthiest foods sold at Illinois farmers markets and in a variety of brickand mortar locations. To build awareness of Link Match, we carriedout a statewide television, streaming, and train/bus marketing campaign that also include the publication and distribution of astatewide brochure 'GET MORE WITH LINK MATCH at Illinois Farmers Markets, Farm Stands, Food Co-ops, Grocery Stores, Mobile Markets, Delivery Service, and CSAs.' In our effort to work with small, single store, brick and mortar firms (including food cooperatives), during the reporting period, Link Up Illinois launched Link Match at the Fresh Foods grocery in Carbondale and the Food Shed Co-op in Woodstock, Illinois. Having a dedicated Program Manager for retail has been key to ongoing expansion to more brick and mortar locations and to ongoing support for those locations already offering Link Match. In total, Link Up Illinois now supports 11 small, single store brick and mortar firms across the state. In our 2023 GusNIP survey, Experimental Station added several questions regarding satisfaction with the Link Match program and the SNAP client's perception of changes in their health as a result of participating in the Link Match program. We are excited to report that 88.9% of SNAP customers shopping at farmers markets reported eating more fruits and vegetables as a result of (61% a LOT more), while 83.5% of respondents reported that their health was better as a result of using Link Match (52.2% a LOT better). These numbers were significantly higher than SNAP customers shopping at our brick and mortar locations, where78.4% of SNAP customers surveyed reported thattheir health had improved as a result of using LinkMatch. 4. During the reporting period, in partnership with CBS/Paramount's Community Partnership Division, Experimental Station carried out statewide TV and OTT streaming advertising for Link Match. In May/June CBS produced a 30- and 15-second public service advertisement that ran throughout the CBS viewing area covering seven counties and was streamed downstate in targeted areas, using Paramount's OTT streaming capacities. 5. To meet Link Up Illinois'critical underlying goal of supporting our regional farmers, Experimental Station has advocated for the past several years for a state vision and plan for increasing the production and infrastructure for distributing and marketing Illinois food (i.e. Specialty) crops. In 2020, Experimental Station partnered with the Illinois Department of Human Services to create a BIPOC farmers infrastructure grant program, providing $675,000 of funding to 26 small farms in Chicago and the surrounding area. As a result of ongoing advocacy during the reporting period, the Illinois Department of Human Services is now supporting a statewide food systems planning process led by Experimental Station. As a first step, we have hired a Project Manager and created an Advisory Group of invested policy, farming, and farmers market organizations to develop and support the process. With their support, we willcreate numerous opportunitiesin the coming six monthstogather stakeholders throughout Illinois to assess what is currently being done and where the gaps lie.

Publications