At Your Fingertips
We launched two new websites for Double Up Food Bucks this winter, helping shoppers learn about the program nationally and in Michigan more easily than ever before.
For us, helping families across the country easily find information about Double Up and similar nutrition incentive programs online is essential, especially when demand for such programs is soaring and in-person outreach is limited.
To help, our team reimagined what a Double Up website could be, creating both a new landing page for Double Up programs nationwide and a fresh take for Double Up in Michigan. Launched in January 2021, both websites were designed with accessibility front and center to better engage families using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, near and far.
After more than a decade, our Double Up Food Bucks program has grown from a small pilot in Detroit to now being active in 28 states. Double Up matches SNAP dollars to help people bring home more fresh fruits and veggies for less. Due to the COVID crisis, people using SNAP has greatly expanded across the country. Federal spending on the country’s largest nutrition assistance program increased by nearly 50 percent in 2020 amid the economic shock of the pandemic, according to newly released data from the Agriculture Department. Double Up has become ever more essential to help people using SNAP benefits to bring home more healthy food. We are grateful to offer these new websites so the resources SNAP recipients are looking for are at their fingertips.
Doubling up across America
Helping people connect to information about Double Up in their home state, doubleupamerica.org serves up program details near them. Highlighting the win-win-win program, Double Up America features an easy-to-use location finder, highlighting 28 states that now offer the program. Information about other nutrition incentive programs like Double Up is also shared for all 50 states on the website. The design, bright colors, and videos chosen for the website for design accessibility and to bring some fun and friendliness to the website as you learn about the program. Available in English and Spanish, visitors can also see how the program works and read frequently asked questions. Double Up partners across the country have access to new website templates that echo the design of the national website, and can be customized for their home states. This is just another way we’re helping nutrition incentive practitioners hit the ground running.
A fresh take on Double Up Michigan’s website
With a surge in people using SNAP across Michigan due to the pandemic, sharing program updates to new and existing Double Up customers was critical to help people bring home more healthy food. To keep our communities at the center, beautiful pictures of participating grocery stores, farmers markets, and shoppers from across the state are featured across every page of doubleupfoodbucks.org. Here too we made the site available in both English and Spanish, plus it was designed to be accessible for all visitors. New videos explaining how the program works in grocery stores, farmers markets, and Flint were created for the website and are now being spread to participating locations to share with customers. The locations page was reimagined so that visitors can easily find participating locations by them and understand how the program works at their nearest store or market before they shop. And a new blog offers tips about what produce is in season, recipes, and ways to store produce year-round, emphasizing the importance of buying locally grown food and Double Up’s support for local farmers.
Fair Food Network continues to look for ways to connect Double Up to SNAP recipients wherever they live, especially during the most difficult times. Check it out and let us know what you think! Please email us at info@doubleupfoodbucks.org.