Yesterday, Rachel and I met with our Easton Hospital contacts: Stephen Wilson, Vice President of Marketing, and Allison, head of the Nutrition Team.  We are working with Easton Hospital staff to coordinate demos for distribution nights. At our meeting we discussed the VIC mission and the goals of our demos. We decided that the Nutrition Team would provide free samples and recipes to demonstrate how to prepare meals with the available produce. We believe this method of getting West Ward residents to try new foods would be more effective than cooking demonstrations. Mr. Wilson explained that cooking demonstrations would be too great of a time commitment. Also, the Kellyn foundation, our other community partner, will be hosting cooking demonstrations at the EACC. At our veggie stand, we will encourage community members to attend these weekly cooking demonstrations and provide a calendar of events, talks, and demos that will be held at our veggie stand or in the community. Mr. Wilson also offered speakers and physicians from other departments of the hospital to attend our distribution nights. He suggested free blood pressure or cholesterol tests.

At either our first or second distribution night we will conduct surveys to determine what types of guest speakers or demonstrations residents would like from the Easton Hospital Staff. We will also ask about the types of foods, ingredients, and cooking utensils the West Ward has in their pantries to create recipes that are more feasible. Allison and our VIC team coordinate recipes based on the responses to the surveys and the vegetables that have been harvested that week. We sent Mr. Wilson the recipes used last year so that we can avoid repeating what was already provided.

As for the Kellyn Foundation: I emailed them last week and they are able to donate vegetables! Aaron Little, a student at Lafayette will be our main contact to coordinate these donations. We are also in the process of requesting donations from Wegmans and Giant. These produce donations will be helpful in sustaining distribution throughout the summer and into the fall, allow us to offer more fruit, and strengthen our ties to the Easton and the Lehigh Valley. Kevin Jackson, a fellow EXCEL student working on Aquaculture and revitalizing the Bangor High School greenhouse, has obtained a plot at LaFarm and has offered to donate the a large amount of the produce in his greenhouse. We will be working closely with Kevin as the summer goes on because our projects share the same goals of making nutritious foods accessible to local families.

Gelmar Moraga, is a Lafayette Community Fellow and graduate of Lehigh University. He is heading the veggie van initiative (with the “ice-cream-truck” model) for the Lehigh Valley – including Easton, Bethlehem, and Allentown. We will be working with Gelmar to compare our “Veggie Van” models, discuss failures and successes, and establish ties to the Lehigh Valley.

As Rachel, Andrew, and I brainstormed for the demonstrations we would host at our veggie stand, we realized that we want to make our stand a place of community. We want events that draw in the community not just so that they pick up vegetables; we hope to connect with more residents and that the residents connect with one another. We hope to host potlucks, recipe-sharing events, facilitate arts and crafts, and attract families. We want our stand to be about more than distribution. With our community partners, this goal will be possible to achieve.