All proceeds/donations will go to Roots Rising Virtual Farmers Market. In just eight weeks, their Virtual Farmers Market has served 1400 households, generated nearly $50,000 in sales for our local farmers and food producers and provided over $18,000 in financial assistance to our neighbors in need.
The reason they need these donations NOW more than ever is that people that have SNAP(food stamps) who could previously use their debit cards for everything at the Farmers Market CANNOT use them online because it's not available yet, so Roots Rising has been depleting their own budget to give a certain number of people each week 30% off their orders since they can't use their SNAP benefits to get local, organic, healthy, whole, fresh food delivered to their house through the Virtual farmers market.
A new report by Feeding America estimates that 19,300 people in Berkshire County — 15.4 percent of the population — are at risk of not having enough food. That is 50 percent more than before the advent of the pandemic, the group says. The increase in food insecurity is even higher for children. Almost one in four children in the county, 5,090 young people, faces that uncertainty according to the group, the country's largest hunger-relief organization.
