The week began hot and humid, but luckily cooled off some for Thursday night distribution. The next two weeks will be busy since Alexa is on vacation. So it’s up to me and all our wonderful volunteers to complete the tasks necessary for the Veggie Stand. On Tuesday, an invitation was sent to the mayor of Easton and many other dignitaries to attend the stand next Thursday as special guests. We hope to have a good turnout and use the opportunity to promote WWNP and VIC as a program for the community. On Wednesday, I traveled to the West Easton Treatment Center and Lynn St. community gardens to pick up vegetables for the stand. East 40 also donated a good portion of produce, in addition to community gardeners on the LaFarm plots. We are very thankful to have donations from so many different gardens because not only  are we receiving more vegetables to distribute, but also we are receiving a lot more variety. Many people have returned to the stand to tell us about different vegetables they have tried and really enjoyed.

This week we had the largest amount of vegetables to distribute (over 600 pIMG_0893ounds!)  and attendees (close to 80 residents) at the Veggie Stand. We are happy to know that almost all of the vegetables got taken; by 6:30, when most people had left, we had Nancy Walters from the Easton Hunger Coalition come take the small excess. Earlier in the week Nancy had sent me a schedule of who would be doing the excess pick-up from the stand each week. This will be a helpful tool as we continue with our partnership with EHC. VIC’s goal is to increase food access in the West Ward, by teaming with the Easton Hunger Coalition we are contributing more and more to that goal. Each week the produce goes to a different food pantry within Easton.

Another goal of VIC includes building community strength in order to promote awareness of the gardens and community sustainability of the program. For this week’s Veggie Stand we had a cooking demonstration presented by Easton Hospital’s Chef Jose Estevez. He made a delicious ratatouille with zuchinni, tomatoes, onions and squash. I made sure to inform residents of the special guests we hope to have at the stand next week and the art project that Miranda Wilcha (one of our student volunteers) has created for kids to participate in. It’s important to educate kids about the importance of vegetables and nutrition, and a hands-on art project is a way to have fun while educating. Some of the kids who attended the stand this week were reluctant to try the ratatouille sample; however once they did, they were coming back for seconds.

Again, we had a written survey for the attendees of the Veggie Stand. We seemed to get a good response for written surveys so I decided it would be best to continue with them. Some of the questions were repeats from last week and others were the same. I asked about whether the attendees had come to the stand last summer or in previous weeks. The goal is to see how many new people we have each week. I also asked about where people had heard about the stand in order to find out about how well our advertising worked. I also asked about how attendees got to the stand in addition to what kind of food they chose and why. These questions were asked in order to examine why certain vegetables may not be chosen over others and how that relates to styles of cooking. Overall, the survey was well answered and hopefully we can use them in the future to improve the Veggie Stand in addition to qualitiative data for the article.

I saw a few familiar faces from weeks past, but many new people attended and were excited to hear about the program and the farm. One woman had me write down the address and the times for volunteering at the Urban Farm. Another man signed his name and told me he would like to and is willing to help with distribution nights since he lives right around the corner. In order for VIC to continue we need to continue to recruit community members that are willing to volunteer their time. Even just and hour on the farm, every little bit helps to sustain the program.

I am excited to continue with the Veggie Stand for the rest of the summer. So far it has been a huge success and I am sure it will continue to be so!