From brew paths to espresso crawls, Stark County residents have plenty of alternatives to discover the native choices of the area this summer time.
Earlier this month, the Stark County Well being Division launched another, encouraging residents to go to the entire space farmers markets.
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The Stark Marketeers passport began this summer time by way of the division’s Creating Wholesome Communities grant and the Reside Effectively Stark County initiative. Abigail Jenkins, a well being educator with the division, got here up with the concept after seeing the success of passports for breweries in Akron.
“I believed getting individuals to totally different farmers markets can be an amazing concept,” Jenkins mentioned. “And it began with simply an concept that I threw out and inside two months, we had been capable of make it an interactive web site.”
To take part in this system, consumers scan a QR code at every farmers market or log their market visits on the Stark Marketeers web site at https://stark-marketeers-starkcohealthoh.hub.arcgis.com/. Buyers will likely be requested to reply to a survey about their go to to the farmers market, and anonymized information from these surveys is displayed on the Marketeers web site.
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Individuals who go to all 4 markets could obtain a prize, equivalent to a water bottle, measuring spoons or lunch containers from Reside Effectively.
“We’ll use that to assist propel this system subsequent yr and make it even higher,” Jenkins mentioned.
There’s a second goal to this system as nicely, Jenkins mentioned. When the summer time is over and many of the farmers markets shut for the season, her staff plans to ship out a short to those that participated within the passport program to get extra suggestions about how farmers markets can tackle well being of their communities.
Filling out the ultimate survey enters respondents in a drawing for certainly one of two grand prizes centered on the themes of wholesome consuming and energetic residing.
“Numerous occasions we predict we’d know what the neighborhood needs, however what we truly would possibly implement is not truly what they’ll use, so we’re attempting to get them stuff that they’ll truly use,” Jenkins mentioned. “The Marketeers is a superb program, I believe as a result of it lets individuals find out about what farmers markets are in Stark County and if they’ll get to them and if they cannot, then how can we assist them get sources to get there.”
Sam Zern could be reached at [email protected] or 330-580-8322. You may as well discover her on Twitter at @sam_zern.
