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Our van is packed with harvest baskets, coolers, and tables for our farm stand this Thursday night! We are almost ready for our first farm stand distribution. Thanks to all those who have helped us get to this point, including our advisors, Sophia Feller and LaFarm, and Sarah Edmonds and WWNP.

We are looking forward to partnering with those providing the Vegetables In Community program with generous support and donations of produce including: Easton Hospital, Capitol Blue Cross, City of Easton, Kellyn Foundation, Crayola Gardens, Wegman’s, Giant, Ken Jones and the Lynn St. Garden, Yvonne Tugya, Lafayette College, CACLV, and WWNP.

Our plot at the farm is looking great, and we will have a lot of summer squash and zucchini, from the Urban Farm, for Thursday. For a complete list of vegetables available this week and for more information about the farm stand, please see the link below: http://sites.lafayette.edu/vic/veggie-van/

See you at the S. 10th and Pine Garden!

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.

This past week has been incredible. Andrew, Rachel, and I have worked so well together and accomplished a great deal. We have finished planting our first plot and have begun our second. We have learned so much from Sophia Feller of the West Ward Neighborhood Partnership and Sarah Edmonds. They are always available to answer any questions. By asking questions and letting them know about our problems, we have been able to overcome any issues we were having. The start of this project has entailed valuable lessons about working as a team and as a member of Easton’s community.

After meeting with Sophia and helping out at the Urban Farm I realized how important it is to be able to ask questions and come prepared to discuss any concerns you have. No matter the time in the morning or what kind of day you are having, articulating your thoughts, taking notes, and engaging in conversation is essential. Being congenial and sincere in all of your interactions is a crucial component of community building and learning from people who have so much to teach you!

I have been talking to Professor Cohen about our role as students at Lafayette and members of the broader Easton community. Though we are members of Lafayette College, we are very much a part of Easton. This summer is not about community service hours or completing assigned tasks or fulfilling a requirement. This summer is about developing deeper ties with Easton and promoting health and welfare through food justice.

I began to truly take on this identity and feel imbedded in the West Ward as we went beyond the fences of LaFarm and visited the Lot Spot for the plant exchange hosted by WWNP. Speaking with community members I learned what an impact beatification projects like the creation of the Lot Spot have on community. One woman I spoke with told me her friends and family questioned her decision to move to the West Ward. She explained that her community and projects like this make her proud as a citizen and happy as a mother. People in the community have even taken the initiative to pick up trash and maintain this area.

At this event, Andrew, Rachel, and I spoke with Lexy Rodriguez, the manager of the Urban Farm. She shared stories of experiences at the farm. She explained that her goal is to get people to be passionate about growing their own food and working at the farm or personal gardens. The system of simply giving food away is not sustainable. Lexy hopes to see more people learn to grow their food — enough to provide full meals and adequate nutrition for themselves and their families.

Our team has made a great deal of progress on the farm and in the community. This week we plan to help out on Yvonne’s garden and continue forging new relationships. As the summer goes on, our relationships with community garden managers and community members will be essential in developing a sustainable program with a lasting impact on nutrition and access to fresh produce in the West Ward. I am eager to dig deeper into issues of food justice. I hope to have a better understanding of our position as students, how community members perceive us, and how issues of nutrition and access to fresh, affordable produce can be justly resolved in the future. Though we are part of Easton, our team comes from a unique position at Lafayette. As the summer goes on, I hope to better understand how this position and perspective influences the way we take on this social issue.

It is our goal to provide our Easton neighbors with a variety of nutritious produce, grown in nearby community gardens. Each Thursday evening, beginning July 10, we will have our Farm Stand at the 10th & Pine Community Garden in the West Ward of Easton. Our farm stand will be open from 5-7pm, connecting our neighbors with fresh vegetables, resources such as food-related demonstrations or activities, as well as seasonal recipes on how to cook with the food that is available each week.

Research is being conducted on a continuous bases in the following areas:

• Food production, land management, & best practices,
• Food justice,
• Social justice,
• Food distribution best practices,
• Program sustainability (environmental, social, economic).

Our current goal is to produce a peer-reviewed journal article to be published based on the work conducted in the Summer of 2014.