Healthy food stands stand for healthy communities

Posted by [email protected] | Sep 27, 2015 | Social Issues | 0 |

F2B tent on South Avenue with Cathleen Konopka, Darla Ferrante and Cammy Edwards

• August 4, 2015

Cycling can build an appetite, so I found the sign “Sweet Corn” irresistible.

F2P at the YMCA Metro

At the Farm 2 Preschool food stand on South Avenue I was greeted by a cornucopia of fresh fruits and vegetables. And by Darla Ferrante, Farm to Preschool Coordinator, and Cathleen Konopka, Project Assistant, and Cammy Edwards, Project intern. Located across from the Highland Hospital and next to the Highland Branch Library and the James P.B. Duffy School, the stand is ideally located to serve the surrounding neighborhood. I happily filled my bag with cucumbers, tomatoes and, of course, sweet corn — and even received a red oven mitt with my purchases!

As explained to me by Darla, Farm to Preschool is about much more than selling produce. Its mission is to teach young children about locally grown fruits and vegetables, nutrition and gardening. A head start on healthy eating for life.

Facilitated by the Child Care Council, F2P is a branch of the national program funded by the NYS Department of Health. Begun in 2014, the goal is making fresh, local produce more readily available to low income communities. Specifically, the program targets the parents and children at three local child care centers in Rochester and also one in Buffalo. At each location once a week, the staff sets up a tent outside the child care center, selling fresh produce from McCraken Farm in Brockport and Mank Farm in Hilton, offering different sample recipes each week, along with a free gift to incentivize people to buy produce and eat healthier. (This week potholders and my oven mitt.)

Kohlrabi coleslaw samples

The locations are:

Rochester Child First Network 941 South Avenue Mon 2 – 4:30pm

YMCA Metro 444 East Main Street Wed 3:30 – 6:30 pm

VOA Children’s Center 214 Thurs Lake Avenue 3 – 5:30pm

Ripen with US Child Care Center 550 Kenmore Ave, Buffalo Tues 3:30 – 6pm

I was also impressed with Cathleen, University of Rochester ’15 and Cammy, University of Rochester ’16, a Public Health major. Both were on varsity sports teams, softball and track respectively, and like to share their ideas on healthy lifestyles. Next year Cathleen will be working with AmeriCorps in an RCSD school.

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For more on AmeriCorps and city schools, see AmeriCorps plans to leave lasting legacy at the Douglass Campus

About The Author

[email protected]

Welcome to Talker of the Town! My name is David Kramer. I have a Ph.D in English and teach at Keuka College. I am a former and still active Fellow at the Nazareth College Center for Public History and a Storyteller in Residence at the SmallMatters Institute. Over the years, I have taught at Monroe Community College, the Rochester Institute of Technology and St. John Fisher College. I have published numerous Guest Essays, Letters, Book Reviews and Opinion pieces in The New York Times, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, the Buffalo News, the Rochester Patriot, the Providence Journal, the Providence Business News, the Brown Alumni Magazine, the New London Day, the Boston Herald, the Messenger Post Newspapers, the Wedge, the Empty Closet, the CITY, Lake Affect Magazine and Brighton Connections. My poetry appears in The Criterion: An International Journal in English and Rundenalia and my academic writing in War, Literature and the Arts and Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. Starting in February 2013, I wrote for three Democratic and Chronicle blogs, "Make City Schools Better," "Unite Rochester," and the "Editorial Board." When my tenure at the D & C ended, I wanted to continue conversations first begun there. And start new ones. So we created this new space, Talker of the Town, where all are invited to join. I don’t like to say these posts are “mine.” Very few of them are the sole product of my sometimes overheated imagination. Instead, I call them partnerships and collaborations. Or as they say in education, “peer group work.” Talker of the Town might better be Talkers of the Town. The blog won’t thrive without your leads, text, pictures, ideas, facebook shares, tweets, comments and criticisms.