As part of a growing local effort to address food insecurity, the Montgomery County government has launched a new program in partnership with Instacart that will allow recipients of food vouchers to choose their own groceries.
MC Groceries is a partnership between the food delivery service, the county government and local grocery stores. It will provide nearly 600 Montgomery County families living with food insecurity—including more than 1,000 children—monthly stipends for online grocery shopping and delivery.
“I feel pretty strongly that COVID unveiled a hidden problem in this county that existed in a much greater depth,” County Executive Marc Elrich said Thursday at a press conference to announce the program held outside the Sprouts Farmers Market in Burtonsville. “These are working people, and these are people whose wages are not sufficient to pay for food and pay for rent.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was about a 50% increase in the number of Montgomery County residents who were experiencing food insecurity, according to Heather Bruskin, director of the county’s Office of Food Systems Resilience. At the same time, there was an estimated 50% increase in the number of organizations that were providing food assistance in the county, Bruskin said last month. Local food pantries continue to struggle to keep up with the demands of a community facing increasing food insecurity.
Combined with decreasing pandemic-related government assistance, the end of a federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit supplement in March 2023 also has resulted in more residents needing help to feed their families, according to Earl Stoddard, the county’s assistant chief administrative officer.
Eligible families in the MC Groceries program will be able to use their vouchers to shop through the Instacart food delivery service at local grocery stores, choosing the groceries they want to purchase.
Each participating family will receive a monthly stipend to shop for groceries on Instacart. Families can receive $100 each month per child, up to a maximum monthly stipend of $400 for households with four or more children, for a full year.
To qualify for the program, participants must have a household income at or below 400% federal poverty level, cannot receive benefits through the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and must have at least one child under 18 years old in the household.
“It’s an important reminder of the unique needs of every individual household and the power of deciding what food you receive, and where and when and how,” Heather Bruskin, director of the county’s Office of Food Systems Resilience, said at the press conference.
The program is part of a growing trend to allow food voucher recipients to make choices about their groceries. Local food pantry Nourishing Bethesda will open its own Choice Market on Wednesday. The new food pantry will allow qualified individuals to choose their own groceries as opposed to receiving a pre-filled bag.
The pantry’s program “is designed to empower individuals and families in need by allowing them to select the food items that best suit their dietary preferences and cultural needs,” Nourishing Bethesda said in a press release.
Officials at the event said they believe the Instacart partnership program is the first of its kind in the nation.
More than 80 grocery stores in Montgomery County are available via Instacart and are part of the program. A pilot group of participants began using the program this month and have already placed more than 700 grocery orders using their Instacart vouchers, according to Elrich’s office.
According to Bruskin, there are at least 36,000 children in the county who live in households that fall into the “SNAP gap,” meaning that the income level of these households is too high to be eligible for nutrition benefits such as SNAP, but the residents aren’t earning enough to make ends meet. Bruskin said the MC Groceries program is a great option for these families.
“These are exactly the types of creative solutions that we need to see,” County Councilmember Kristin Mink (D-Dist. 5) said at the press conference. “This was a need that existed before the pandemic. It heightened during the pandemic, and it still exists now. We’ve lost a lot of federal funding … this is exactly the type of work that we need, the type of partnerships that we need to see built up. We’re not going to find success in serving these populations if we don’t think outside the box.”