Historic Lewes Farmers Marketsociety

Second accomplishment: farmer scholarships: the hlfm awarded six scholarships totaling 2,267 to small delmarva farmers in 2024, enabling them to attend sustainable farming conferences, including the future harvest casa annual conference and the pasa sustainable agriculture conference. These conferences draw farmers interested in education about sustainable agriculture practices from a broad section of the east coast, mid-atlantic, and the south with similar growing conditions to the delmarva.

Third accomplishmenthlfm food access programs snap/ebt: the hlfm provides access to healthy local food for low-income or underserved local residents by coordinating vendor participation in accepting snap (supplemental nutrition assistance program) ebt at the market. The hlfm also provides matching dollars to help snap recipients stretch their dollars to purchase local, fresh, nutritious foods. The historic lewes farmers market matches up to 20 in tokens for snap/ebt used at the market. This 20 match is for every snap customer, every market. The historic lewes farmers market also does outreach to let snap participants know about the healthy food that can be purchased with the match at the hlfm markets

Farm to community program: in 2023, the historic lewes farmers market was chosen as the sussex county partner by the delaware department of agriculture in the local food purchase assistance cooperative agreement program called farm to community. As the sussex county project partner in this two-year pilot program, the historic lewes farmers market received a subaward of 420,000 to procure, aggregate, and distribute produce, meat, eggs, and dairy from delaware small farmers and other local sources to food pantries across sussex county. Small farmers in delaware typically have limited capital and resources, limited acreage, capacity, and production volume to compete in mainstream market outlets, limited marketing, and promotional resources to maintain a consistent customer base. Meanwhile, small farmers produce a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, and other food products each harvest season that they sell at local farmers markets and roadside farm stands. This pilot project expands the economic opportunity for small scale farmers to gain entry into additional market outlets and institutions, by developing a cooperative structure focused on marketing and promotion; and initiates a procurement relationship between farmers and distribution outlets serving urban and rural communities in the state. In 2024, the hlfm was awarded an additional 300,000 to expand the program into kent county, de. In this farm to community program, the hlfm is presently managing the procurement, aggregation, and distribution of fresh food from 19 local farmers to supply fresh produce, eggs, dairy, and meats to 18 sussex and kent county food pantries, feeding over 4,000 people in need weekly. In 2024, the total amount of food delivered to those in need was 272,472. The program continues through july 2025. Dover community food donation events: in 2024, due to the success of the farm to community program, the delaware department of agriculture asked the hlfm to partner again on a local series of events in the dover community. Over a few weeks in july and august, organizations would come together in different locations across dover, de for local community events centered on health and wellness, giving the hlfm another opportunity to support farmers and bring fresh food into the community. The hlfm procured fresh food from wednesday market vendors to provide grocery bags filled with sweet corn, peaches, bread, jams, and various other fresh veggies to then hand out to families at the wednesday evening community events in dover. Over the 6 weeks of these events, the hlfm gave 160 bags to individuals and families in need, purchasing 4,647 of fresh food. Food pantry purchase program: this program benefits both local small family farms and low-income local residents. The market provides funds to pay the small farmers in the market to supply fresh local food which is donated to a large, local food pantry run by the epworth united methodist church in rehoboth beach, delaware. Both the farmers and those without access to fresh local produce, dairy, and meat, benefit. In 2024, the hlfm procured 13,750 worth of food for the epworth food pantry through this program at the saturday market, including directly purchasing 7,080 of fresh local food from farmers.