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monthly news from ASAP | August 2025 | asapconnections.org
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Join Us for HarvestFest This Saturday!
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Join us this Saturday, August 23, from 3 to 6 p.m. at Olivette Riverside Community and Farm for the 4th Annual Harvestfest. This annual event, produced by Olivette and Chatt Hills Music, celebrates local farmers, community and music while supporting ASAP, farmers, and the community. The event will feature family games, food trucks and bar, live music, and a silent auction. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased here.
Farmers and their families get free entry to the event! There will also be a VIF section (Very Important Farmers) that will pamper farmers during the busy harvest season.
All ticket proceeds support ASAP's Double SNAP for Fruits and Vegetables program. “Without SNAP and Double SNAP, it is very difficult for a family who’s struggling to meet their monthly bills to prioritize healthy food, rather than just affordable food," a participant told us. "My family’s most valuable health insurance is ingesting healthy, local, non-sprayed food. With SNAP, I am more able to provide the best food possible for them, without having to compromise for lower quality food. It's been a huge and vital blessing in our lives!”
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Volunteer for ASAP's Farm Tour
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 Want to get an insider's view of a local farm—and have a great time and support ASAP? Consider volunteering for the Farm Tour!
We need volunteers on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 20-21, 11:30-5. You'll help welcome visitors at a farm—then, on the day you aren't volunteering, you get to tour for free! You can bring along however many friends or family you can pack into your car. It's a fun and rewarding way to connect with your community and get a behind-the-scenes look into the operations of working family farms in Western North Carolina. All participating farms are located within one hour of Asheville. Find out more and sign up here.
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2025-26 Early Care and Education Academy
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 Growing Minds will facilitate an Early Care and Education Academy again for the 2025–26 school year. This opportunity is open to ECE sites in Western North Carolina—whether you are interested in starting a farm to ECE program, or taking your existing program to the next level. Complete this interest form by Thursday, September 18.
As part of the Growing Minds ECE Academy you will:
- Attend Growing Minds training.
- Identify farm to ECE goals and create an action plan.
- Connect with other ECE sites that have identified similar goals and activities.
- Receive resources, supplies, and targeted support from Growing Minds to help reach your farm to ECE goals.
"It was so inspiring and motivating to be taught and supported by the Farm to ECE Academy this year," Althea Dunn, director of Pisgah Collective, said. "The resources provided by the academy and the mini-grant truly elevated our ability to offer farm to school programming to our students and families. Knowing that other programs and educators were out there doing important farm to school work because of the academy’s guidance was truly inspiring as well."
Pictured: Students at Burke Early Head Start inspect their mushroom growing kit from Black Trumpet Farm, provided as part of the ECE Academy.
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Find Growing Minds on #GoOpenNC
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We’re thril led to announce that Growing Minds farm to school lesson plans are now available on #GoOpenNC, North Carolina’s open educational resources platform!
Teachers can explore a rich database of standards-aligned resources on the site—searchable by keyword, subject, grade level, and NC Standard Course of Study. With the addition of Growing Minds lessons, educators now have access to high-quality, farm to school content designed to engage students across multiple subjects. Each lesson includes curriculum connections and links to helpful external resources to bring real-world learning into your classroom.
Start exploring today and bring farm to school to life with #GoOpenNC and Growing Minds!
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ASAP is hiring a Finance and Operations Director. This position partners closely with the Executive Director to lead the organization in consistently achieving its mission and financial objectives. The Finance and Operations Director plays a critical role as advisor and strategic thought-partner with the leadership team, helping to develop the organization’s capacity through strategic planning, policy making, and maintaining organizational effectiveness. This position provides leadership for the organization’s operations with an emphasis on long-term goals and financial health, working as part of the leadership team to create high engagement from staff, board, and partners.
The deadline for applying to this position in Sept. 12. View job qualifications and application instructions here.
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 FACES OF LOCAL |
| |  Karen Appert is the Program Manager for North Carolina Seniors Farmers' Market Nutrition Program (NCSFMNP) through NC Department of Health and Human Services Division of Aging. Karen has been growing the reach and redemption of this program, which helps seniors across the state access fresh food from participating farmers. She is a family caregiving advocate and works on other projects related to older adult food security and nutrition.
Tell me a little more about yourself and how you got into this work.
I started working for the Division of Aging in 2021 as a part-time employee. The NCSFMNP was one of the projects that was given to me and I fell in love with it almost immediately. By living in the Winston-Salem area, I got to explore a lot of farmers markets and get to know the program that way. The person who was running NCSFMNP was retiring and I was worried about the long-term sustainability, so I said, “I can do it!” I had not worked in agriculture previously, but I learned the ins and outs of what works well in certain counties and maybe not in others. The more I learned about the program, the more passionate I became about it and supporting aging populations through local food connections.
Tell us more about NC Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, how it works, and how people can participate.
The Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program is a summer-only program, funded by the USDA, that provides vouchers to eligible lower-income older adults to purchase fresh fruits, vegetables, honey, and fresh cut herbs at program certified farmers’ markets. It’s designed to improve the nutrition of older adults and increase business for local farmers.
This year we have over 500 farmers, over 40 agencies, and over 80 markets participating. We have 55 counties this year, which is the most we have ever had. We work with local agencies in the participating counties to do the screening with the new, returning, or interested clients. The participant has to meet an income requirement, they have to be 60 or older, and they have to live in the county where the vouchers are distributed. Once vouchers get distributed to eligible participants, those older adults can spend them at any NCSFMNP-certified farmers market with NCSFMNP-certified vendors. These vendors have posters up that identify them. Vouchers go directly to the farmers.
There are still vouchers available at the various Council on Aging agencies, including Buncombe County. You can give your local agency a call to see if they still have vouchers available and if you are pre-qualified for the program. The program ends on September 30.
How does this program benefit both Seniors and farmers?
I really see this program as a triple benefit. Participants are able to shop for fresh fruits and vegetables and improve their nutrition, farmers are able to reach new populations and gain new customers, and the local agencies handing out the vouchers are able to better serve their community.
Agencies are excited to offer another program and many report how much their participants look forward to this every year. A lot of these agencies are congregate nutrition sites and senior centers where people are coming together and gathering. There’s a camaraderie already there that carries over to the markets. Some agencies will take their participants on field trips to the markets. The agencies love that this is another way to reach their clients. They love having an excuse to tell clients to go buy something good for themselves.
As for the participants, it’s gotten even more critical these days as other food assistance programs have been cut and the cost of food has gone up. Seniors and older adults feel fortunate to have this program that gets them out to shop at markets. It encourages that community building piece—they can go on an outing with friends, get to know the vendors, and feel like they're doing good by supporting local farms.
On the vendor side, it doesn’t cost them anything to participate in the program and it provides an added income source. Farmers are building a deeper connection with the community and connecting with a new customer base that may have never shopped at markets before.
What do you like to shop for at farmers markets?
I must say, Western North Carolina is my favorite region to work in because it is perfectly set up with all the markets happening throughout the week, almost every day. That makes this program even more accessible for participants to redeem their vouchers at whichever market or day meets their needs best.
I love seeing and picking all the different types of tomatoes, especially to do taste tests with. So far, my two favorites are German Johnson and Cherokee Purple. I have learned that even some of the ugliest tomatoes are often the tastiest. That just speaks to my heart and makes me love them more! Until going to markets, I never knew about pattypan squash. I love them—that they keep their consistency and are so cute.
I was very excited yesterday at River Arts District Farmers Market to find fresh edamame! I have never had fresh edamame and I am eager to try it. WNC the first time we revisited kohlrabi. My husband and I got into a CSA years ago and we got so much kohlrabi. We were so over it and thought we’d never eat it again. Years later, when we came up here to North Asheville Tailgate Market, someone had a kohlrabi sample and it was so good. We eat it regularly now. It was key having someone sample it since it’s such a weird looking crop and when you’re not sure how to cook with it. We got a recipe for a kohlrabi coleslaw and we eat it all the time now.
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 RECIPE OF THE MONTH |
| |  Paletas are Mexican-style popsicles, typically made from fresh, local fruit. You can find melons at farmers markets and farm stands now through the end of summer. If you don’t have ice-pop molds, you can DIY them using small disposable cups or ice cube trays and inserting a popsicle stick. For a flavor twist, add finely chopped basil or mint to your paletas!
Ingredients
- 1 small seedless watermelon
- 1 small cantaloupe
- 1 small honeydew melon
Directions
- Cut each melon in half. With a spoon, scoop out the seeds from the cantaloupe and honeydew. Then scoop out the flesh from all the melons with an ice cream scoop. Or you can cut the flesh from the rind with a knife, then cut it into chunks.
- Have ready 12 ice-pop molds. You may want to have more on hand in case you end up with extra puree.
- Put the watermelon in a blender and process until smooth. Fill one-third of the molds with the puree. Rinse out the blender and repeat with the cantaloupe and then with the honeydew. The puree can be a bit chunky.
- Place the molds in the freezer. If you are using nontraditional molds, such as ice-cube trays or paper cups, you will need to freeze the puree until it is partially frozen, usually about 2 hours, then insert a stick into each mold and return the molds to the freezer.
- Freeze the paletas for at least 8 hours or up to 24 hours. They will keep in the freezer for 1 month.
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Find more recipes at growing-minds.org and asapconnections.org.
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 MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS |
| | "[HarvestFest] is a great opportunity to support the Double SNAP program, but also to come together, bring your family, hang out with your neighbors, and get to know farmers in your community."
—Sarah Hart, ASAP's Communication and Engagement Director, on News 7
"Stepp’s Hillcrest Orchard invites visitors to not only enjoy the season, but to be part of something bigger: a celebration of Western North Carolina’s farming heritage and the future it continues to grow." A portion of funds raised from the farm's 2025 corn maze will benefit ASAP's Appalachian Grown Farmer Resiliency Fund.
"If you’re in town on a Saturday, head to the Asheville City Market, hosted weekly downtown on Market Street by the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, for European-style pastries, locally roasted coffee, fresh juices, handmade cheese, and artisan granola."
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ASAP's mission is to help local farms thrive, link farmers to markets and supporters, and build healthy communities through connections to local food.
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