The Farmers Market in Bloomington had some additional customers Saturday morning, people using LINK cards.

"We know there are a lot of people who really don't have the financial resources they need to buy fresh produce on an ongoing basis," said Elaine Sebold, who helps coordinate the downtown Bloomington Farmers Market. "We wanted to be able to give them access to the locally grown foods that we have here at the farmers Market. The only way to do that is if we could accept LINK cards here."

LINK cards looks like a credit card but are used in place of food stamps. The idea to incorporate them at the Farmers Market came from a recent Illinois–Wesleyan graduate, Danny Burke.

"In Bloomington I see there are a lot of Bloomington's and there's not one Bloomington," said Burke. "This makes the Bloomington's into one Bloomington here at this market. It brings people from a wide range of backgrounds, different classes and races to the market with this LINK program."

The State Farm Bank has played a big role in facilitating the use of LINK cards at the Farmers Market. People simply look for the red tent where they can use the card to buy tokens which are accepted by all of the vendors.

"It's important for State Farm Bank to be involved because the number one cause of food injustice is poverty," said Heather Paul, who works for State Farm Bank. "For a financial institution to help address that and provide additional education, in addition to access to healthy foods, really helps combine all of those things that are important in revitalization efforts."

Now that his idea is a reality in Bloomington, Burke is considering working to spread it to other outdoor market places.

"I graduated from Wesleyan in May and I received a Bill Emerson national hunger fellowship in Washington, D.C. I'll be working in Washington on the policy of world hunger and on the community level with hunger doing this very thing."