July 11, 2003
Farmers Market Opening Day June 28, 2003
christine, paloma, jessica, roseleen, valere, yahaira, melanie, eileen
i picked this picture cause i like the color red. in the picture it shows that we're all pretty organized and that we're all content with our lives at that paticular moment in time. it also shows some of the produce that we sell at the farmers market.
These pictures are from one of our first Farmers Markets. On that day we had a lot of face painting, (for the younger kids) and arts and crafts. We also had programs for the mothers on how to enroll their daughters into the LES Girls Club and how you can help by volunteering. We have Farmers Markets in this area of town to show people that there is a right and healthy way to eat.
By GALA Girl letasha
Farmers’ Market Project Description by Jennifer Suggs
While we weren’t on the Hudson River this summer, the GALA girls were on the land…. farmland that is, visiting farmers in Long Island and working hard at our weekly Farmer’s Market. The Farmers’ Market was a massive undertaking that the Girls Club took on this summer, and with help of the GALA girls we have managed to make it a success. Continuing with our ongoing effort to promote nutritional education and support sustainable foods and local farmers, the Girls Club has opened their very own community (non Greenmarket) Farmers’ Market on Ave D. Recognizing that Ave D (largely Puerto Rican, low income Spanish speaking) is a long way away from Ave A ( largely Anglo middle class), we wanted to bring fresh fruits and vegetable to the families that most need them yet have no access to them. These are the families of our girls. The bottom line is that we can not promote a healthy lifestyle at the Girls Club without making an effort to improve the community’s access to fresh foods and awareness of nutritional issues.
Working with the Ryan Nena Health Center and community Senior Centers, we significantly boosted the neighborhood residents’ use of WIC and Senior Coupons in the Farmers Market Nutrition Program. Essentially we have a created the only space where people can redeem their coupons for fresh fruits and vegetables every week. Considering that 35% of New York Hispanics are known to be overweight, this Farmers Market is doing a great service to the Lower Eastside community in promoting the consumption of healthy food while supporting local farmers and NY agriculture. We are also working on providing cooking demonstrations and classes to neighborhood moms in our Sweet Thing’s kitchen. The idea is that mothers can learn how to prepare the fresh foods that they buy at the market each week. We had our first mother’s cooking class on August 13th with the Chef from Paladar, a local Puerto Rican chef who has made it big in the culinary world. More classes are to come once a month in the fall.
The GALA girls have been working all summer to make the market happen each and every week. It is a lot of work to set up and take down the market, advertise for it, work the Sweet Things stand, assist farmers, helping younger kids with Arts and Crafts, etc… Every week the girls worked shifts 9-1 or 1-6. These market days, were not only days of labor they were learning opportunities. The girls participated in poetry workshops with Celena every weekend in July where the main topics of discussion were food, nutrition, and politics. Forcing the girls to address important issues such as understanding where their food comes from, making connections between poverty and obesity, comparing the differences between fresh and processed foods, and learning the “nutritional value” of food and how that affects one’s health. Our poetry sessions became spoken word seminars on food politics, a weekly process which opened all the girls’ eyes and made them think. The end product as a PSA on Veggies for Public Television.
Posted by at July 11, 2003 11:40 AM