“And so you’re paying a little bit extra on the retail side to maybe make a lower price for someone else. “The main concept is that the people who can afford to will help subsidize the people who can’t,” Vandurme said. It might flex into three tiers in a structured sliding scale. One key difference between traditional farmers markets and this one is likely to be pricing. People in Becket, at MCLA and at 18 Degrees all advocated to be sites of the pilot farmers markets. Ovitsky said the two organizations surveyed people throughout the county at emergency food sites. So we started looking at the outlying communities.” We didn’t want to be in downtown North Adams for the same reason. “So we didn’t want to be in downtown Pittsfield because they have a robust downtown market. “We also were really cognizant of not wanting to compete with stationary markets,” Ovitsky said. “Either they make too much money to access SNAP, or they don’t have transportation or they’re in the more rural lands. In choosing locations, “We wanted to make sure to capture the demographic that generally falls through the cracks,” Ovitsky said. The grant won't pay for things such as the food and marketing, so fundraising is still needed. To fund the launch, in 2022 Berkshire Regional Planning Commission applied for and received a $645,194 grant from the USDA’s Regional Food System Partnership on behalf of Berkshire Bounty, Berkshire Grown, as well as the Southern Berkshires Rural Health Network, Berkshire United Way and Community Health Programs.
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