After weeks of farming and preparing for the first veggie stand of the season, it comes as a relief to all of us interns to have had strong launch this past week. With clear skies, abundant harvests, and the help of Sophia, Steve, and a number of student volunteers, the tents were set up and the Safe Harbor produce was weighed in time for 5:30. Apart from us feeling a little frazzled about what to set up first, setup went relatively smoothly, and we decided it would be wise to plan a general sequence or checklist of things that we need to do in order to make the process a little less stressful.

We saw 39 attendees come and go with bags full of veggies, and we had plenty left over to be donated to the Easton Area Neighborhood Center afterward (much thanks to the harvests from LaFarm, the Easton Urban Farm, Crayola, and the Safe Harbor community garden). We also had some kale recipes available, distributed a survey on food security, and Miranda hosted a flower-pressing activity that drew the attention of several kids.

Above: a few of our volunteers handing out produce last week.

We had advertised about a week in advance, posting on the ViC Facebook page and distributing flyers in widening circles around 10th and Pine (our stand location), and it seems that Facebook was the more successful method of the two, even though both drew visitors to the stand (that, and most notably, Sophia spreading the word throughout the neighborhood). In the future we definitely want to make regular use of Facebook to advertise our weekly activities and have more conversations with people in the neighborhood and community leaders to better spread the word about our stand.