For the second year in a row, a truck-based produce market will be making the rounds of Martha’s Vineyard neighborhoods five afternoons a week, laden with locally-grown vegetables, fruits and eggs at below-retail prices. When it’s not on the road, the truck will do double duty as a farmstand at Thimble Farm in Vineyard Haven.
The Mobile Market from nonprofit Island Grown Initiative goes back into service Monday, visiting six Island locations each week. “We have changed up our schedule this year, so we can be at five of the six stops from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.,” said IGI food equity and recovery manager Sophie Abrams Mazza, who projects an up to 25 per cent increase in business this season.
The one exception to the new schedule is Woodside Village, where the mobile market will stop Wednesdays from 3:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. The earlier slot is designed to attract parents picking up their children from programs at Martha’s Vineyard Community Services and the YMCA, Ms. Mazza said.
After its Woodside visit, the market will roll on to Hillside Village for a 5 p.m. Wednesday stop. The other 5 p.m. stops are Morgan Woods in Edgartown on Mondays, the Oak Bluffs Library on Tuesdays, St. Augustine’s Catholic Church in Vineyard Haven on Thursdays and the Wampanoag tribal housing in Aquinnah on Sundays.
The mobile market will stock produce and eggs from Morning Glory Farm, Thimble Farm and Slough Farm in Katama, as well as Massachusetts honey from an off-Island producer, Ms. Mazza said.
Before hitting the road in the afternoons, the mobile market truck will take up its position as the farmstand for Thimble Farm every day but Wednesday, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Located at the Farm Hub on Stoney Hill Farm in Vineyard Haven, the stand will carry produce from Thimble Farm’s year-round greenhouses, Farm Hub director Matthew Dix said.
Its Island Grown identity represents a 180-degree change in course for the mobile market truck, which Ms. Mazza said began its life as a rolling performance stage for McDonald’s icon Ronald McDonald in appearances at county fairs and other public events.
The 2005 Chevrolet Cutaway G3500 then passed into the hands of a florist, who used the burger mascot’s drop-down dance stage as a platform to display flowers and added solar panels to help power a generator for refrigeration. IGI bought the vehicle in the spring of 2017 and the mobile market made its debut last July.
Through the end of this month, customers who buy produce from the mobile market with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) card can essentially double their benefits with the Healthy Incentive Program (HIP), which instantly credits back the amount spent on fresh fruits and vegetables from selected local vendors.
On Martha’s Vineyard, only the mobile market and Thimble Farm stand, Morning Glory Farm in Edgartown and Slip Away Farm on Chappaquiddick — as well as those farms’ stands at the West Tisbury Farmers Market — are approved for the HIP program, which ends June 30, Ms. Mazza said.
State legislators have not yet acted to fund the HIP program for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Noli Taylor, community food education director for IGI, said Massachusetts food activists are seeking $6.2 million for the next year after a three-year incentive budget of $4 million lasted less than 12 months.
“We ate through all three years of funding in less than the first year, because it worked,” Ms. Taylor. She said the Vineyard’s elected state officials, Sen. Julian Cyr and Rep. Dylan Fernandez, both support increasing the fruit and vegetable incentive.
“They see the value of it here, and the broader ramifications around the state of having people of all income levels have access to good food,” Ms. Taylor said.
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