WHEELING, W.Va. — Grow Ohio Valley at the Wheeling Public Market recently received a $187,000 grant that is expected to help local farmers and vendors.

The local food system nonprofit received the USDA grant. With this money, Grow Ohio Valley will now receive additional benefits to help local farmers and vendors.

“It’s going to be good because we can spend money and they can get a lot of awareness out of it,” said Jodi Adams, CEO of Grow Ohio Valley.

The Farmers Market Promotion Program grant will further assist the 60 vendors who bring their items to sell at the market with additional marketing strategies or technical assistance, whether packaging or preserving their items for an extended period of time.

Adams said it was vital to help local farmers.

“When you shop locally, you put money back into the regional economy,” Adams said. “And local produce will always be better because there aren’t as many emissions spent on trucks coming from all over the country to get the food delivered.” be sold.

“What’s important is that they are more nutrient dense and last longer, so you can have carrots from our farms that will keep in our refrigerator for weeks.”

This will not only help the farmers but also the customers. Through the grant, Grow Ohio Valley was able to obtain payment for 50% of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program products.

“The person using the EPT card only spends half of what they would spend and that’s on all food, not just produce,” Adams said. “But because we can do that, we can offer them the largest assortment of local produce and they get the opportunity to get local meat and produce and have produce that can sometimes be a little more expensive.

Adams said they also hope to host upcoming events at the market with this funding.