Some of the nearly $29 million Boulder collected through the first six and a half years of a voter-passed soda tax has given low-income residents extra cash to buy fresh produce from local businesses.
This is one in all some ways the town is directing revenue from this unusual tax to numerous programs focused on improving health equity locally.
Maria Fraire, one in all nearly 1,500 people from 370 families currently enrolled the Fruit & Veg Boulder programhas relied on the monthly stipend to take care of her vegan weight loss plan and typically shops at Whole Foods. She has been a part of the initiative for a couple of 12 months and receives the utmost amount of $80 per thirty days to buy groceries for her family.
“My breakfast is vegetables, my lunch is vegetables,” she said in Spanish. Fraire is originally from Zacatecas, Mexico, and has lived in Boulder for nearly 25 years.
Given the high prices of fresh produce, she said, “(the program) is a big help to me.”
Fruit & Veg Boulder is an element of a broader Boulder County program which also serves residents of Longmont. Enrollees must Low-income limits; for a family of 4, the annual adjusted gross household income needs to be lower than $55,500. Residents of those cities may participate in the event that they don’t otherwise qualify for 2 federal food assistance programs that support low-income families and pregnant women and girls with young children.
The agricultural program fills a niche by helping, amongst others, undocumented immigrants and families with mixed immigration status, or households with each U.S. residents and other people without legal status.
Program participants buy groceries with paper coupons. Households with one or two people receive $40 a month, while households with three or more people receive $80 a month.
Funding for Boulder’s portion of this system is essentially provided by the town Tax revenues for sugar-sweetened beveragesawarded by Health Fundwhile Longmont is counting on other sources of funding. Boulder became one in all the the few cities within the country to tax sugary drinks in line with the voting proposal adopted with 54% of the votes within the 2016 election. Other cities with soda taxes are Seattle, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
The tax, which took effect in July 2017, imposes a 2 cent per ounce excise tax on retailers of sweetened beverages similar to sodas and energy drinks. Voting measure stipulated that tax revenues needs to be used for health promotion, wellness programs and the prevention of chronic diseases.
The amount of soda tax revenue allocated to the Fruit & Veg Boulder program sometimes fluctuates, but is projected to be $298,000 in 2024 – the identical as last 12 months, said Elizabeth Crowe, deputy director of Boulder's Housing and Social Services Department.
The program has received additional money from the town's allocations under the federal pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act: $55,000 this 12 months and $88,000 last 12 months. The extra cash was used to scale back this system's energetic waitlist, Crowe said.
“We need this access”
The overwhelming demand for this system is fueled partly by the high cost of living in Boulder. To earn a living wage in Boulder County, an adult without children would need to earn $26.36 per hour of their job, in line with a subsistence level calculator from the Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyFor a parent with two children, the wage is $65.26 an hour — several times the $14.42 minimum wage in Boulder and Longmont, with the county minimum wage being barely higher in unincorporated areas.
“There are a lot of people in Boulder County struggling to make ends meet and make it,” says Amelia Hulbert, who leads the Boulder County Health Department’s Healthy Eating and Active Lifestyle team.
In Boulder, Fruit & Veg program participants can visit the Boulder Farmers Market and eight participating grocery stores, including King Soopers and Whole Foods Market.
Organizations that connect families with this system are feeling the impact on their communities, but gaps in access remain.
Elena Aranda is co-director of The Friendship Centera nonprofit that supports the county's Latino community. She attended an event on the Boulder Farmers Market last week, sitting within the shade as market-goers strolled down thirteenth Street with reusable bags under their arms.
“You don’t see our community coming here,” Aranda said, “because they can’t afford it.”
But due to the Boulder program, participants are beginning to feel welcome with vouchers in hand, Aranda said. “We need that access, especially for children,” she added.
However, Jorge De Santiago, co-director of El Centro Amistad, says this system can only serve “a very small percentage of families who really need the support.”
Since he doesn’t expect demand to say no, De Santiago would love to expand this system to the remaining of the country.
Hulbert also wants the monthly allocation for participants to be increased because “food has become more expensive due to inflation.”
The program is now 5 years old
The Fruit & Veg Boulder program began in 2019, followed by the Longmont program in 2020, which now supports greater than 1,000 people in 225 families.
In addition to funding its portion of this system, the town of Boulder awards soda tax revenue to organizations working on food and water safety, health and wellness education, physical fitness and more through the Health Equity Fund. This 12 months, about 50 grants totaling $3.8 million were really helpful, in line with a listing of allocations.
Other recipients include Clinica Campesina Family Health Services, a community health facility that received $175,180 to supply comprehensive primary care services to the population, and Community Food Share, a food bank that received $116,946 to acquire and distribute healthy food.
Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett praised his city's fruit and vegetable program as “a groundbreaking initiative for our community.”
He also identified the positive impact on the local businesses where participants shop.
Emmy Bender, co-owner of Outside the beet farmsells vegetables grown on her farm in Boulder County on the Boulder Farmers Market. Bender estimates that 10 to fifteen percent of last 12 months's sales were because of assistance to low-income people just like the Fruit & Veg Boulder program, now in its second 12 months of business.
She described it as a “win-win situation for everyone.”
“Local farmers can sell their food and support the local economy and soil health,” Bender said. “And then people can get our food who otherwise couldn't afford it.”
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