By JORDAN STRICKLER

Kentucky Correspondent

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Franklin County Farmers’ Market will be greatly improving its assistance to the local community, thanks to a USDA grant.

The market was Kentucky’s big winner in this year’s Farmers Market Promotion Program, when it was awarded a $199,245 grant for its “Local Food for All: Increasing Farm Sales and Access to Fresh Food in Franklin County” project.

“This has been an exciting year at the Franklin County Farmers’ Market, with an expanded Double Dollars program, great attendance at our monthly Kids’ Days and increased engagement with a range of community partners,” said Connie Lemley, market farmer and Local Food for All project manager.

“There is so much good work that we can do to improve access to fresh local foods and build a vibrant local food economy, and we are thrilled that this grant will give us the opportunity to do more of it.”

The Franklin County Farmers’ Market project will span three years and has three focuses: growing the market in downtown Frankfort, piloting a farm-to-workplace delivery program and creating a mobile farmers’ market. Management also hope the funds will be able to allow them to hire a full-time community engagement coordinator, whom they hope to have in place by November.

“We want to try to get more people there and have more activities and more events for the public,” said Lemley. “We’d also like to have an educational component that will create programming for school groups that would come during the summer or the school year.

“We believe Frankfort is a fantastic location for workplace delivery program due to the people who commute downtown for work. This would be a great area to have local produce dropped off at their workplace.

“We want to increase the area which can obtain produce, which is why we want to create the mobile market. Instead of everyone having to come downtown, sometimes we will be able to take multiple vendors’ produce out to other markets to make it more accessible,” she added.

The farmers’ market, which has been in existence for more than 30 years, is a growers-only market in the heart of Kentucky’s capital and carries agricultural products contributed by 30 farmers from Franklin County and adjacent counties.

Community partners in the project include Kentucky State University, the Food Literacy Project, Franklin County Cooperative Extension, the Friends of the Market, Community Farm Alliance, the United Way, Frankfort Parks and Recreation, Frankfort Independent Schools, Kids Grow KY, the Franklin County Health Department, New Roots, the Frankfort Tourist Commission, the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Frankfort, Inc.

The USDA program, which awarded 52 grants worth more than $13.3 million, was created to increase domestic consumption of, and access to, locally and regionally produced agricultural products, and to develop new market opportunities for farm and ranch operations.

This is the largest grant the market has received from the USDA since it was awarded $121,500 to build its current pavilion.