INNOVATION GRANT

5 A’s Veggies and Produce will continue to provide the communities we serve through in-person, online, and in-home deliveries of farm-to-door nutrition. 5 A’s has served the rural communities of Burke County with meals and farm-to-door options since Covid changed the way help is served to rural communities. 5 A’s goal is to serve 1800+ plus seniors and those in assisted living facilities weekly. 5 A’s noticed and addressed the issues of those who don’t use technology (email, texting, social media, etc) didn’t receive the same opportunities to receive the much-needed assistance available. 5 A’s and partnership with Wholesome Wave Georgia allows much-needed assistance to reach communities that are not accessible through group gatherings, social events, or technology. These communities thrive and/or exist in rural areas. Our focus will remain to reach these communities which include senior centers, assisted living facilities, and elderly who are at home without transportation. 5 A’s will continue to improve our reach by employing the citizens of these communities to better serve the people in these communities. 5A’s will also continue to educate farmers on how working together and learning to use technology will help their communities and legacy for generations to come.

We plan to think outside of the box when it comes to traditional farmers market marketing. I will implement some of the strategies used in music PR, apply them to the market, and see how they are measured. As a millennial, we were the first generation to use most of the current-day technology, and I want to implement the digital age with grassroots marketing and PR techniques.

Our first campaign will consist of reels from notable Atlanta music pioneers discussing why food sustainability is essential for this city, how buying local will improve the local Atlanta economy, and how diversity and inclusion in the agriculture industry are vital for black adolescents to see.

Our second campaign will consist of market visits from local Atlanta foodies. Influencer marketing is a crucial marketing strategy used by the Millennial and Gen-Z generations.

Our fourth campaign will be direct mailers. Again, we do not want to exclude the Silent through X generations by solely focusing on digital content. However, direct mailers will ensure we are reaching these demographics.

Last, we will focus on improving the last bit of our signage which includes adding two feather flags and billboard campaigns. We partner with a national billboard company and will run a few billboards to see how those results measure.

Our focus is on Community Markets and locations in areas where there’s a scarcity of fresh and available produce; a scarcity of hospitals; and a lack of access to medical care. We will host pop up Farmers Markets at Churches, Schools, and Community events – events which we believe are best suited to reach SNAP/EBT customers (because they’re held in locations that are classified as food deserts) and in lower-income areas where many of the residents tend to have SNAP/EBT benefits. We are planning an extensive advertising campaign. We will have signs, postcards, and reusable shopping bags to give out to the public and our team will be wearing branded T-shirts. Our team members will be hosting pop-up markets simply to get the word out about Fresh 4 Less and about the discounts available to SNAP/EBT customers.

The Lilburn Farmers Market will be featured on the cover of our local magazine, Up Close and Personal for the June issue. This magazine features the market and its Wholesome Wave Georgia Fresh for Less program and is directly mailed to 55,000 households in our area. We have an ad in the magazine as well promoting the EBT program at the market. We will also purchase an ad in the Reino magazine, with our ad in Spanish. We hope to attract more customers who use EBT but are not aware of our program because they speak Spanish. This magazine also has a large social media presence and the staff will make a video during the market narrated in Spanish. We are advertising the Georgia Fresh for Less program on an electronic billboard at the busy intersection entrance to Lilburn.

We will be using the WWG Mini Grant to support and announce the formation of Macon’s new (and only) producer-only farmers market, Poplar St Farmer’s Market. The funds will be used to purchase an advertisement in the paper, print fliers, posters, signage, and a banner, and cover the cost of marketing both the market and the Doubling of EBT at the market. We believe this market will be an asset to local farmers, to the customer community, and to the City Of Macon.

“There and Back Again: A Market Journey” is a project that will make use of a new bus route to connect the community to the market. Through an awareness campaign that targets EBT/SNAP recipients, we will inform our community about the availability of this new bus service, and provide incentives such as insulated market bags to encourage participation. Our overarching goal is to create a market journey that is not only accessible but also enjoyable and empowering for our community, fostering connections between individuals and the local food system. We aim to break down barriers to healthy eating and promote a stronger sense of community around the farmers market.

Trefoil Gardens will increase GF4L visibility in Downtown Woodstock Farm.Fresh.Market. and local communities with a focus on the largely underrepresented Latinx community. “Visit Woodstock GA” has offered to provide a dedicated space for a bilingual market liaison, funded by the GF4L Innovation & Cultivation grant. To further increase the reach of our market to our LatinX community, Trefoil Gardens will utilize grant funds to create, print, and distribute visually clean bilingual flyers featuring GF4L and Woodstock Market imagery. We will distribute these to public spaces (DFCS/DPH, AA meetings, Churches, Crisis Pregnancy, Food Banks, Libraries, Police and Fire) and private spaces (Restaurant Kitchens, Breakrooms, and Laundromats) and run regular checks and replacements as needed thru the season. With more forward-facing support and co-branding with our City, our neighbors in need will feel more welcome at the market, and we will further legitimize the GF4L program with vendors, who are not required by our market managers to participate in the GF4L program. We are super excited to begin this new partnership and chapter in the EBT program at our market! This is going to give the program fantastic traction for 2023 and will set us up for an amazing 2024 and beyond.

Wayne County Farmers Market will issue fliers to the Wayne County schools for disbursement to the children to bring home to their parents. The fliers will advertise the doubled buying power of families who receive SNAP benefits. Each family who brings their child to the market with the flier in hand will receive a $2 coupon for that child to spend with any vendor and the parents will be informed of their ability to double their buying power when they use their EBT card. Each flier that is returned to the market will be tallied and added up at the end of November to calculate the response versus the fliers sent out. The funds will be used to cover the cost of getting the fliers and coupons printed and the amount of coupons redeemed.

West End Farmers Market ATL (a Redeemed Community Outreach project) will use funding from G4FL to implement a new marketing strategy aimed at seniors, households with children, and apartment complexes. The strategy will include outreach to these groups aimed at assisting them with transportation to market, as well as interactive and entertaining cooking demonstrations at the Farmers Market. The goal is to increase awareness of the GF4L incentive program and register new SNAP customers who can immediately benefit from the program.