A Texas-side mobile farmer's market program brings fresh vegetables, fruit and more delicious, nutritious items to communities where they're needed.
And true to the farmers' market spirit, produce and other goods delivered to Texas-side destinations are grown and made by locals for locals.
The Texarkana, Texas, Farmers' Market mobile market program uses green energy, too, to transport the produce with an ELF bike to locations like Robison Terrace and the high rise apartment complex in Rosehill.
Weekly menus include items like potatoes, eggs, collard greens, squash and local honey, items found at the downtown market. They change over the season, depending on availability. Orders are taken Wednesday for a Thursday morning delivery.
"In 2014, the city received an FMPP grant through the USDA, and that's the Farmers' Market Promotion Program," Fleming said. "Under that grant, one of the major tenets was to create a mobile market system that could help expand the market into communities that typically don't have access to fresh fruits and vegetables."
Such communities are called urban food deserts, a definition given by the federal government. So with that goal in mind, the city began forming a program to fulfill the grant requirement.
"For urban (food deserts), if you can't essentially walk within your neighborhood to a grocery store, then that's going to be an urban food desert," Fleming said, noting the federal government has a map outlining these food deserts. Rural ones exist, too. Typically, an urban food desert is associated with a lower economic status.
Food deserts here are found in neighborhoods like Beverly and Rosehill. The market's goal is to serve them via this program and do so directly.
"We have those fresh fruits and vegetables when we're in season that they don't have access to. Now if we can't expect somebody to walk to a grocery store, there's no way they're going to be able to walk to come down to the farmers' market," Fleming said.
So, the idea is to get it to them, in this case by partnering with the city's housing authority. An order form is completed at the site where a delivery is to be made. Regular market prices apply.
"Then we go to our vendors and we say, the residents need 10 pounds of potatoes, six pounds of tomatoes, some collard greens and some local honey, too," Fleming said of an example order.
Once the order is filled downtown, it's placed in the ELF and transported to the housing authority location, where the transaction happens.
"We're trying to basically knock down the barriers of entry into the farmers' market," Fleming said. The key is to make it accessible to places like Robison Terrace.
"Right now that's just one location, but the idea is that we want to expand this eventually to have at least six different locations around town. It starts with the Housing Authority because obviously that's a large concentration of residents and it helps us to be able to serve that many people that easily," Fleming said. They'd like to add a drop-off point at a community garden in the Beverly neighborhood.
To that end, they're creating an online order form accessible at the city website. This will allow them to add more destinations, such as the Collins Senior Center and Spring Lake Park educational pavilion.
What's popular? Collard greens, for one. "We have two vendors that grow collard greens and provide it to the market and every year it's just been something that they bring a little bit of," Fleming said. "But for whatever reason this year, collard greens have been incredibly popular with not just the mobile market but also the market downtown, as well."
Tomatoes have been popular, too, and honey and bread. In fact, the first ripe green tomato of the year was delivered through the mobile market program.
They've taken orders since the end of May. At Robison Terrace, the program is available to roughly 400 residents. Fleming anticipates growth as they get online and expand to other locations.
Carolyn Nance is a resident engagement specialist at Robison Terrace, where the city serves elderly and disabled residents. They ensure that residents know about the program and, if interested, are able to buy goods. Orders from residents are given to her and she passes them on to the farmers' market.
"So far, the response has been good," Nance said. "They're interested in it. They're definitely interested in having healthy food, produce." She's noticed orders are bigger the first half of the month, compared to the latter, and mentions both collard greens and squash as the most popular items.
She agrees the area is dry when it comes to fresh produce, so it's a need being met through the program, Nance said. Residents can acquire this food without getting on a bus, she said.
"This is the best place for them to obtain fresh produce," Nance said, estimating that about 10 residents have placed orders weekly so far. Without a doubt, she says, that number will grow, particularly with the order form going online soon. With support, she said, this program will be effective.
Fleming hopes to get new locations going in the next two weeks. The two-year grant program totaled $93,746, which includes an education series the city is developing, too. The grant expires at the end of this summer, but the plan is to continue the mobile market.
"Everything that we're starting this year is something that we look to continue," Fleming said. "Because all of these, I think, are important to the community and all of them serve a very valuable function."
The city's ELF 1.7 vehicle came with an increasedcarrying capacity and increased range, Fleming said. Powered by electricity and solar power, it can hold up to 500 pounds of produce with a 20-mile range. A ride to Robison Terrace takes 12 minutes.
So they have the equipment and both the vendor and Housing Authority of Texarkana, Texas buy-in to continue moving forward for the program, Fleming said.
"And now we just need the rest of the community to buy into it, as well," he said.
The Texas-side farmer's market season runs through August 13. Fleming said they plan to hold a Christmas market and, perhaps, a fall market.
"I think that as the program expands and as it reaches more people this really is a very forward-thinking way of handling some of the nutritional issues in the neighborhoods and it really goes right to the heart of the problems and addresses people who need the help the most," Fleming said.