About Our Team

This website is a project of the Nutrition Incentive Hub‘s Farm Direct Team. The Nutrition Incentive Hub is a coalition of partners, created by the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program Training, Technical Assistance, Evaluation, and Information Center (GusNIP NTAE Center), that supports nutrition incentive and produce prescription projects. The GusNIP NTAE Center is led by Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition. In partnership with Fair Food Network, they assembled the Nutrition Incentive Hub, a coalition of practitioners, grocery and farmers market experts, researchers, and evaluators from across the country, including the Farmers Market Coalition.

Together, we are dedicated to supporting program applicants and grantees and strengthening and uniting the best thinking in the field to increase access to and affordability of fruits and vegetables and improve health outcomes of participating households. 

Additional Resources:

Nutrition Incentive Hub – Organizations that administer a network of nutrition incentive projects across a broad region or state may benefit from the resources and information on this site which span all nutrition incentive projects, including produce prescription. 

National Grocers Association Foundation’s Technical Assistance Center – This site provides information specific to nutrition incentives at brick and mortar outlets.

For more on incentives, please see our FAQ page.

The Farmers Market Coalition, Michigan Farmers Market Association, and Ecology Center serve as Technical Assistance and Innovation partners under the Nutrition Incentive Hub and together form the Hub’s Farm Direct Team. This page includes individual profiles for each Farm Direct Team member along with a brief description of their role in this work.

Name: Rachael Ward (she/her)

Organization: Farmers Market Coalition

Role: Farmers Market Support Project Manager

Location: Eugene, Oregon

Nutrition Incentive Hub focus: Rachael manages the Farm Direct Team’s interaction with the Hub at a high level. She helps to coordinate and collaborate work between FMC, Ecology Center, and Michigan Farmers Market Association and other players in the Nutrition Incentive Hub. Together with the FD team Rachael plans out goals, objectives, and activities for each year of the contract and keeps the team accountable to timelines. She helps to oversee the work of the Resource Libraries Coordinator and Network Coordinator including resource creation and compilation, technical assistance, and webinars.

Contact information: Rachael can be reached at rachael@farmersmarketcoaliton.org

Name: Nina Budabin McQuown (they/them)

Organization: Farmers Market Coalition

Role: Resource Libraries Coordinator

Location: Baltimore, Maryland

Nutrition Incentive Hub focus: Nina’s work with the Hub focuses on the toolkits and resources that support farm direct practitioners in their work including resource libraries, resource creation, practitioner papers, and curricula. Contact them if you have an idea for a new resource, or know of an existing resource that should be made available to farm direct operators or farm direct GusNIP grantees.

Contact information: Nina can be reached at nina@farmersmarketcoalition.org

Name: Katie Myhre (she/her)

Role: Technology Research Manager

Organization: Farmers Market Coalition

Location: Minneapolis and Barnum, Minnesota

Nutrition Incentive Hub focus: Katie’s work with the Hub focuses on existing and emerging technologies and how they support or cause challenges for farm direct retail sites, ranging from online SNAP to point of sale technology. She creates resources that support better utilization of technology and conducts research on implementation. Contact her if you’re interested in sharing about the technology you’re utilizing or with questions about other emerging technology resources.

Contact information: Katie can be reached at katie@farmersmarketcoaliton.org

Name: Mykalee McGowan (she/her/they/them)

Organization: Farmers Market Coalition

Role: Communications Associate

Location: Easton, Pennsylvania

Nutrition Incentive Hub focus: Mykalee’s work with the Hub focuses on communication and outreach of events, webinars, and other valuable information. Contact them when you have an event, webinar or other farm direct incentive information to announce.  

Contact information: Mykalee can be reached at mykalee@farmersmarketcoalition.org.

Name: Amanda Shreve (she/her)

Organization: Michigan Farmers Market Association (MIFMA)

Role: Executive Director

Location: East Lansing, Michigan

Nutrition Incentive Hub focus: Based on her 11 year of experience implementing incentive programs in farmers markets, Amanda provides technical assistance through the Hub for grantees implementing both SNAP incentives and Produce Prescription programs in Farm Direct settings. Amanda is also contributing to the creation of a curriculum for grantees implementing SNAP incentives in Farm Direct settings and provides leadership for MIFMA’s involvement in all aspects of the Hub.

Contact information: MIFMA can be reached at foodaccess@mifma.org

Name: Joe Lesausky (he/him)

Organization: MIFMA

Current role: Food Access Director

Location: Lansing, Michigan

Nutrition Incentive Hub focus:  Joe specializes in supporting Farm Direct sites with their challenges related to technology and SNAP processing.  With over 10 years of experience he also helps with a variety of technical assistance questions around program operations, resource review, and problem solving challenges.  Joe is always ready to help listen to challenges and help brainstorm solutions and next steps.

Contact email: MIFMA can be reached at foodaccess@mifma.org

Name: Julia Kramer (she/her/they/them)

Organization: Michigan Farmers Market Association

Role: Assistant Director

Location: East Lansing, Michigan

Nutrition Incentive Hub focus: Julia provides technical assistance to Farm Direct sites to support acceptance of nutrition incentives and other requests related to program operations. They have 10 years of experience managing farmers markets and supporting various community-driven food distribution programs.

Contact email: MIFMA can be reached at foodaccess@mifma.org