The Illinois LINK card allows food stamp recipients to receive this benefit electronically, via the use of a debit card.

A Program To Accept LINK Cards At Your Farmers' Market

This guide provides a step-by-step guide for farmers’ markets to become LINK retailers, including detailed information, along with checklists and reference materials. In addition to including examples from our own experience, it also includes information about alternative approaches and tools. We are hopeful that other markets will add information about their own experiences, increasing the value and reliability of this guide over time.

Interested In Establishing A LINK Program At Your Market?

We created a public GroupSite as not only a way to share our LINK Guide, but also as a PUBLIC FORUM to help answer questions and share information and resources. We expect that the value and reliability of our Guide and its supporting documents will continue to grow as you post questions and add information about your own experiences.

We would like to thank the many organizations that participated in the development and success of the LINK Guide and our Fresh shares program at the Downtown Bloomington Farmers’ Market: Downtown Bloomington Association, State Farm Bank, Harvest of Hope, West Bloomington Revitalization Project, and Illinois Wesleyan University. We especially want to thank Illinois Wesleyan graduate Danny Burke,whose vision and passion for food justice inspired this effort.

LINK at the farmers' market is only one piece in the food justice puzzle. Our Fresh Shares program was created to ensure that all members of the Bloomington-Normal community have access to fresh food. The first component of the Fresh Shares program was made possible by a $5,000 grant from State Farm Bank. These funds cover the cost of the $5 Fresh Shares coupons. The goal of the coupon program is to get current and potential LINK recipients to become regular customers at the farmers’ market. In the future, HLFN is looking at the possibility of expanding these programs to other local farmers’ markets as well.

• Illinois Stewardship Alliance - http://www.ilstewards.org/
• Illinois Farm Direct - http://www.illinoisfarmdirect.org/index.html
• Local Harvest - http://www.localharvest.org/
• U of I McLean County Extension - http://www.mcleanextension.org
• Illinois Farm Bureau - http://www.ilfb.org
• McLean County Farm Bureau - http://www.mcfb.org/
• Downtown Bloomington Farmers’ Market - http://www.downtownbloomington.org/
• The Land Connection - http://www.thelandconnection.org/
• IL Local and Organic Food and Farm Task Force - http://www.foodfarmsjobs.org/
• Ecology Action Center -www.ecologyactioncenter.org
• Illinois Sustainable Living and Wellness Expo (ISLWE) - www.islwe.org