Round two for LFP Market Bucks

Vendors at the Lake Forest Park Farmers Market have been seeing green — in coupon form — since the market opened in May.

Those who started the Market Bucks Program with Friends of Third Place Commons hope a second round of the green coupons will be in rotation soon.

“We’re almost at a 30 percent redemption rate,” Constance Perenyi, director of Friends of Third Place Commons, said on July 14.

In discussions with other groups who manage similar programs at other farmers markets, Perenyi said she learned a typical redemption rate for the coupons falls around 40 percent for one season.

“We’ll exceed that — definitely,” she said.

The Market Bucks have been distributed at nine different local organizations, including food banks, senior centers, health centers and elementary schools since the second week of this year’s market, according to Perenyi. Each coupon is worth $2 and can be used in lieu of cash to purchase market items.

There isn’t a stipulation on what a person can buy when they use the coupon, but the majority of 824 Market Bucks redeemed to date have been exchanged for fresh produce such as vegetables and berries, Perenyi said.

Farmers are reimbursed for every Market Buck they accept at the end of the day.

“It’s a scramble at the end of the day to pay market vendors,” Perenyi said.

The program is supported by grant money that is on the verge of being used up, according to Perenyi. She hopes funding for a second round of the Bucks this season will be generated from a fundraising event on July 20 at Third Place Commons. Authors Alisa Smith and J.B. MacKinnon will join market vendors and the owners of GreenGo Foods, Heidi and Dylan Stockman, to prepare food chosen from the day’s market from 4 to 5:15 p.m. The cooking demonstration will be followed by a reading and discussion of Smith and MacKinnon’s book “Plenty: Eating Locally on a 100 Mile Diet.”

Cooking samples and recipes, including one for the Stockmans’ market-featured polenta, will be available for a donation of $15 during the demonstration. All donations will benefit the Market Bucks Program.

“Dylan has written a detailed recipe so people will be able to make polenta the way GreenGo does,” Perenyi said. “The cooking demonstration will be improvisational; it will be chefs in action.”

According to Perenyi, the program has helped those who otherwise wouldn’t consider shopping at the market, including senior citizens and those who originally assumed market prices would be higher than grocery store prices.

“A lot of getting more people to the market has to do with the Market Bucks Program,” she said.

Distributing the coupons certainly helped more Hopelink clients become aware of the Lake Forest Park Farmer’s Market, according to Leslie Brooks, supervisor of the food bank’s Shoreline location.

“A lot of people didn’t know about that particular market,” she said. “Overwhelmingly the response has been very positive.”

The organization would be interested in distributing more Market Bucks, she said.

In addition to the Market Bucks, the Lake Forest Park Farmers Market also accepts food stamps, Senior/WIC Nutrition Vouchers and cash.

Donations to the Market Bucks programs are tax-deductible and can be sent to: Friends of Third Place Commons, 17171 Bothell Way NE, PMB 309, Lake Forest Park, WA 98155.