Double Up Food Bucks Nevada

Recipient Organization
TOGETHER WE CAN
1231 JOURNEY WAY
NORTH LAS VEGAS,NV 89031

Performing Department
(N/A)

Non Technical Summary
The purpose of the project will be to expose consumers that may not be in the habit of consuming fruits and vegetables to more produce and increase fresh produce consumption in their daily diet.Our goal is to serve 50,000 unduplicated SNAP participants. Incentivizing the purchases of fruit and vegetables increases their affordability and consumption and also aim to improve the nutrition and health status of those on SNAP who participate in the financial incentive program by using nutrition education.In addition to increasing the opportunity to purchase affordable produce which will be the catalyst to improving the health of our most vulnerable residents.Our local capabilities and assets include stakeholders from various parts of the food system who collaborate on methods and strategies that can be used to improve the health of households on SNAP. Our grant partners and supporters will be instrumental in promoting DUFB to more than 390,000 households in Nevada on SNAP. Given the tremendous need of capacity building of project partners and supporters, the activities selected for this Project are based on their ability to advance the primary goal of increasing the purchases of fruit and vegetables.

Animal Health Component

(N/A)

Research Effort Categories

Basic

100%

Applied

(N/A)

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
704	1499	3020	100%

Knowledge Area
704 - Nutrition and Hunger in the Population;

Subject Of Investigation
1499 - Vegetables, general/other;

Field Of Science
3020 - Education;

Keywords

Goals / Objectives
The Goals are to: (1) Increase the purchases of fruits and vegetables by low-income consumers on SNAP by offering incentives at Farmers Markets and Grocery Stores; and (2) Facilitate behavior change to encourage increased consumption of fruits and vegetables by low-income consumers on SNAP. These goals directly contribute to the primary goal of the GusNIP grants program which is to increase the purchases of fruits and vegetables at the point of purchase. They will do this by offering a financial incentive, utilizing direct market strategies, and providing nutrition education.

Project Methods
Program evaluation will be led by Dr. Qing Wu. Dr. Wu will work with the steering committee, project directors and market managers to develop evaluation tools and processes (i.e., logic models, evaluation plans, and strategies) that will provide information that measure the outcome of the program. The key measures will include self-reported behaviors of participants, in addition to measures indicating that the project is meeting the DUFB indicators of success with regard to increasing purchases of fruits and vegetables at the point of purchase and facilitating behaviors that lead to improved health and nutrition status. The evaluator will use participant level data collected from surveys and simple questionnaires with SNAP participants, TWC staff, market managers and market staff, volunteers, and firm-level data to improve and refine project activities and development.The data will be collected by our program partners TULIPS and GBC and a $10 participant stipend in the form of a gift card will be offered to those who complete the survey. This will ensure a higher percentage of surveys being completed and data collected.

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

Outputs
Target Audience:Our target market in Southern NV arelow-income families on SNAP that live in the highest poverty zip codes. 80% of the participants are black and hispanic. In Northern NV almost most of the participants are low-income caucasians. Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?We hosted a statewide dufb training facilitated by the staff at Fair Food who flew to Vegas to conduct the training. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Results have been disseminated through emails and phone calls. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We plan to continue our monthly food demos and nutrition education lectures onsite partnering with the Southern Nevada Health District. We will also be partnering with Regional Transportation Services and engineering students at UNLV who will conduct surveys at each location to determine accessibility and walkability to each site from the qualified families within a 1 mile radius.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? We are currently offering monthly cooking demos and nutrition education lectures at the sites. We are working with staff at the Southern NV Health District who is distributing refrigerator magnets we created that have best storage practices for most fruits and vegetables. This will facilitate behavior changes knowing how to prepare and store the produce to get maximum shelf life and maximum health benefits. We are doing a marketing campaign with ads in local publications, email blasts, facebook posts and tv commercials promoting all of the locations offering DUFB. This will increase the foot traffic at each site which will in turn increase the purchases of fruits and vegetables.

Publications