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MERRITT HERALD MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
THURSDAY, AUGUST 21, 2014
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Farmers market coupon program expands to Merritt By Emily Wessel THE HERALD
newsroom@merrittherald.com
BRAVING ICY WATERS Local BC Ambulance Service paramedics (from left) Kevin Bates, Laura Murray and Sheena Osborne brace themselves for a cascade of icy water during their ice bucket challenge on Aug. 18. The ice bucket challenge is a campaign to raise awareness for ALS, a neurodegenerative disease that kills nerve cells and paralyzes muscles. The paramedics were one of three agencies nominated by the Merritt Fire Rescue Department. Nominees have 24 hours after they’re nominated on social media to complete the challenge or raise at least $100 for ALS research. The local paramedics nominated staff at their dispatch centre in Kamloops, Merritt’s Kal-Tire and the Nicola Valley Hospital for the challenge. They also plan to collect donations from the station’s staff to contribute to ALS research. An estimated 2,500 to 3,000 Canadians live with ALS. Emily Wessel/Herald For all your landscaping needs call the professionals at
Local families and seniors are getting $15 worth of locally-grown food products from the weekly Nicola Valley Farmers Market on the provincial government, thanks to an expansion in the provincial program that includes the local market for the first time this year. The Nicola Valley and District Food Bank is administering the coupon program with help from the Conayt Friendship Society, which runs Merritt Moms and Families programming. Together, the organizations hand-picked families with young children and five seniors to receive 16 weeks of coupons. The coupons can be used like cash at participating farm markets to buy locally grown fruit, vegetables, meat, eggs, dairy products, nuts and herbs. The catch is that participants in the program also take a monthly nutrition and food preparation course, which is being offered locally by food bank board members Dorothy Molnar and Helen Croft. Food bank manager Marlene Fenton said they’re also teaming up with the chamber of commerce’s Legacy Merritt program on home canning on the afternoons of Aug. 21 and 22, starting at 1 p.m. at the Civic Centre. That program is free to participate in, and connecting with other organizations helps maximize the food skills resources offered in Merritt, Fenton said.
“It has three different groups in the community working together. I think it just builds good relationships,” she said. Fenton described the coupon program as a win-win because it supports local people’s basic needs as well as the area’s farmers and food producers. She said the educational component of the program is as important as the nutrition it ends up providing. “We’re looking at teaching people what locally produced vegetables there are and what sort of things you can do with those,” she said. “When you go to the farmers market, you’ll see there’ll be currants available or kohlrabi, or something like that, and people might not have tried that — especially if money’s sort of tight, then you don’t buy something you’re not sure you’re going to like. If you’re given these coupons, it makes you a little more brave or adventurous because it doesn’t come out of what your initial food budget was going to be.” She said some of the kids involved in the coupon program have come back and reported on what they tried and liked. The coupons represent an injection of $6,000 into the local farmers market, Fenton said. The increase is part of a $750,000 expansion to the province’s farm market coupon program, which includes markets in Clearwater, Salmon Arm and Lytton for the first time this year as well.
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