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Before shoppers at Takoma Park's Crossroads Farmer Market stand in line to buy fresh food and produce on Wednesdays, many of them make their first stop at Ivette Sibille's table, holding yellow Women, Infants and Children food coupons and food stamps.

Sibille takes the coupons and food stamps, which resemble credit cards, and, in two languages, rattles off the procedure for using them at the market located in the 1300 block of Holton Lane.

"This you can use as if it were money," she says in Spanish as she hands a customer coupons marked $1 in the shape of dollar bills. "I give you $10. You can use it for fruit and fresh vegetables.

"If you come back next Wednesday, I'll give you $5 every Wednesday," she says to another customer in English as she hands back the WIC card.

The Crossroads Farmers Market is catering to a socio-economic class that doesn't often buy fresh, healthy food, said the board's president, John Hyde.

The market was the first in the state to accept food stamps, he said. Now in its second year, the market accepts WIC food coupons, provides free transportation for low-income seniors and supplements everyone's benefits with matching funds for fruits and vegetables — the coupons Sibille was handing out.

Hyde said the market has a social cause. The multifaceted mission is to help people spend their federal food benefits and improve nutrition in the mostly immigrant, low-income Langley Park/Crossroads area.

"People in this area deserve as much access to fresh local food as anybody else in Takoma Park," Hyde said.

Funding for the market's ability to match and accept WIC coupons and food stamps has come from various sources, including Washington, D.C.-based Wallace Genetic Foundation, which supports pioneers in sustainable agriculture and biodiversity. Last year, the market received about $40,000 from the foundation and another large grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which supports at-risk children.

"We asked for $50,000 — we got $60,000," Hyde said of the Kellogg Foundation. "That never happens."

Much of the one-time Kellogg Foundation grant went to the development of a micro-loan program to help immigrants, minorities and new farmers set up a stand at Crossroads, Hyde said. He said the program, which offers a subsidized interest rate, is looking for its first recipient this year.

This year, the City of Takoma Park chipped in with $25,000. The city also pays for the buses and drivers that shuttle seniors to and from the market.

As Mary Miller stepped off the bus, she quickly filled her bag with apples, cucumber and cantaloupe. It was the first time "in a long time" she's been to a farmer's market but said she'd probably be back because of the convenience of the shuttle.

Hyattsville resident Ada Castaneda also was visiting the market for the first time. As she traded in her WIC card for a matched amount of coupon dollars, she said the fresh fruit and vegetables will help her young son and soon-to-be born child eat healthier.

"The fruit is fresher and it's better for the kids. It helps out a lot," she said in Spanish, adding she wouldn't shop at the market if it didn't accept food benefits.

But the crossroads market can't survive on welfare benefits alone, Hyde said. To infuse cash in the system, he's offering a season-long "subscription" to the market. For $300, customers will get 20 weeks of fresh produce. Customers can also purchase the subscription on behalf of a low-income family.

What the crossroads market has done is "phenomenal," said Janna Howley, the marketing and outreach director for Fresh Farm Markets, which owns the Silver Spring Farmers Market. Howley said she's used the crossroads market as a model for Silver Spring market's food stamp program, which is in its first year of accepting WIC coupons and food stamps.

Out of the 800 to 900 weekly customers, only a handful use the program at the Silver Spring market, but participation is growing, she said.

At the Wheaton Farmers Market, one lone vendor sells her food to the many WIC coupon holders every week. Margie Satterlee, of Pheasant Hill Farm in Mount Airy, said the market has been accepting WIC coupons as long as she can remember. While it doesn't have the technology to accept digital food stamps, customers at the Wheaton Market are almost all WIC recipients, she said. All of the other vendors left because it's not profitable.

"You start breaking out what comes in between two or three farmers and it doesn't even pay them to drive there," she said. Satterlee, who sells her food at other cash-only markets, said she doesn't know much longer she can stay at Wheaton either.

Hyde and others involved with the Crossroads market don't make a profit but can stay afloat through charitable funding. They're working toward being recognized as a nonprofit, which will help with fundraising, Hyde said.

"It's still a young market," he said. "It's still finding its way."