We would like to profile a partner organization very important in our work: The Pacific Northwest CSA Coalition.
Located in Portland, PNWCSA was founded in the early 1990s and is committed to educating consumers about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), supporting farmers who provide quality local food to our communities, and increasing access to healthy food for underserved communities.
PNWCSA has played a key role in advancing CSA in the region, which currently includes more than 40,000 households and more than 100 CSA member farms. One extremely effective event they hold each spring is the CSA Share Fair where farms and consumers can meet up (next one is March 2, 2025). They have many other events profiling farms, a YouTube channel and recipes! For Portlanders in particular, this is a great resource!
PNWCSA also makes it much easier for people to purchase CSA shares with SNAP (a.k.a. food stamps). Like many federal programs, the world of SNAP is complicated, and it's an expensive administrative burden for farms like ours to process SNAP on our own. PNWCSA helps us by being a clearing house for setting up anyone who is interested in paying for their food using government benefits.
They also offer Double Up Food Bucks, the state's food support program which adds 50% of the cost of the share. In other words, for every dollar spent on SNAP-eligible foods, families receive an additional dollar to spend on Oregon-grown produce.
The PNW CSA program is incredibly popular and has grown 40% year-over-year. In 2024 they helped farmers provide CSA shares to 650 households!
"Being able to use my SNAP benefits, not to mention the Double Up program made participating in the CSA an easy choice this year. I love being able to support a local farm and give my family the freshest produce available. Thank you!"
If you are able, please help them with this important program. As a 501(c)3 business, they welcome donations at their website: https://www.pnwcsa.org/donate
