If you are facing financial hardship and struggle to access fresh produce, please contact us about our food justice programs.
Sliding Scale Program Information
Food justice is one of the three pillars of the Phillies Bridge Farm Project’s mission. We believe that all people have a right to local produce that is healthy and delicious. The need for accessible fresh produce has never been greater: in 2022, 44.2 million people in the United States suffer from food insecurity, a lack of consistent access to the nutritious food necessary for a healthy life (1). In 2021, around 21,954 people living in Ulster County (12%) experienced food insecurity (2).
Courtesy of The Art Effect, Community Foundations, and Forge Media for the Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley.
Communities Lending a Hand
Private food banks and pantries can help families obtain the food necessary to survive, but too often they are only able to provide canned or boxed foods that lack nutritional content. That’s why at Phillies Bridge we sustain a number of partnerships that help us get our sustainably-grown veggies into the hands of the people who need them most. Through our community partners, we donate over 8,000 pounds of fresh produce annually to those facing food insecurity.
Our food justice partner organizations include Family of New Paltz, Helping Hands Food Pantry of Gardiner, Institute for Family Health, Our Core, Inc., The Pantry @ Dutchess Community College, Ulster County Healthy Families, and Ulster Immigrant Defense Network. By collaborating with organizations that are already positioned to get fresh food to those who need it, we are able to broaden our reach. In addition to providing our produce, many of these organizations support their clients with wraparound services like counseling, job training, hygiene products, and more.
Because we want our community-supported agriculture program to be accessible to our entire community, regardless of income, we also offer a sliding scale CSA program that accepts SNAP payments. Sliding Scale CSA members who pay weekly using their EBT card get 70% off their share! The discount is available first-come, first-serve and made possible by our farm’s participation in CSA is a SNAP, a program of the Hudson Valley CSA Coalition, facilitated by Glynwood, and supported by the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Grant Program grant no. 2023-70415-41205 from the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
If you are facing financial hardship, please contact us about these food justice programs.
Creating Real Food Justice
Creating a world where everyone has access to the nutritious food they need requires a multi-pronged solution. Structural changes and major policy reform are needed to create a truly just and equitable society where no one lacks access to fresh nutritious food.
Phillies Bridge Farm Project is dedicated to bringing healthy, fresh produce to those in need in our own community, and we hope you will join us as we work to achieve that mission. If you are in a position to support our program monetarily, your donations will go directly toward providing shares to those in need. We also welcome volunteers to the farm to help with food distribution, farm work, and other projects that keep our farm going!
1. Household Food Security in the United States in 2022
2. Addressing Food Insecurity in Ulster County
This program is supported by individual donors as well as generous grants made by the Farm Fresh Food Initiative of the Community Foundation of the Hudson Valley, Glynwood’s Food Sovereignty Fund, The Hudson Valley CSA Coalition, Ulster County’s Non-Profit Recovery and Resilience Grant, and Anonymous.
