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SLIDESHOW: Ruben Ponce packs up cucumbers for Patricia Brent at the Ponce Produce booth at the East Palo Alto Community Farmers Market on Aug. 5. Photo by Magali Gauthier. -
Fresh fruits on display at Ponce Produce’s booth at the East Palo Alto Community Farmers Market on Aug. 5. This is the first year the market has been held at the Bloomhouse location. Photo by Magali Gauthier. -
Genevieve Maay places green beans in a plastic bag for a customer at Galladro’s Farm’s booth at the East Palo Alto Community Farmers Market in East Palo Alto on Aug. 5. As a safety precaution, shoppers are not permitted to touch the produce. Photo by Magali Gauthier.
Every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., farmers and shoppers gather at the East Palo Alto farmers market, hosted by nonprofit Fresh Approach.
This year, the East Palo Alto market runs from May through November at Bloomhouse, 2555 Pulgas Ave. Farmers travel from as far as Salinas to attend the market, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fresh Approach is a nonprofit dedicated to providing healthy food access to low-income communities. It works with organic family farms in California, providing a space for them to sell their produce while giving East Palo Alto residents access to fresh produce. Food assistance program participants can also get free produce through the market’s robust matching program.
“For a place like East Palo Alto, where they don’t have access to a grocery store that has local, organic, healthy produce, I think it is extremely important to be there for the community,” said Fresh Approach’s food access program coordinator Vera Cordova Mendoza. “Especially during a time when, for some, money is tight, or they just got onto federal benefits because they lost their job.”
As the COVID-19 pandemic has caused business closures and unemployment in the Bay Area, food insecurity is on the rise. The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank reported that they nearly doubled the number of households they serve weekly, from 32,000 pre-pandemic to 60,000 now.
Lost jobs and income make it harder to afford necessities like food. Farmers also struggled to find places to sell their produce.
In an effort to help, Fresh Approach created the Farm Fresh Food Relief project, an emergency food hub that collects unsold produce from small farmers and distributes it to needy families. They continue to host markets at various locations in San Mateo County, including the one in East Palo Alto.
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SLIDESHOW: Customers shop at Gallardo’s Farm’s booth at the East Palo Alto Farmers Market on Aug. 5. As a safety precaution, everyone is required to wear a mask at the market. Photo by Magali Gauthier. -
Genevieve Maay places peppers in a plastic bag for a customer at Galladro’s Farm’s booth at the East Palo Alto Community Farmers Market on Aug. 5. Vendors place purchased items into bags for customers. Photo by Magali Gauthier. -
Gilberto Guillen of Castellanos Farms dons a face mask and cap with the message “Got Fruit?” at the launch of the Fresh Approach East Palo Alto farmers market in May. Photo by Astrid Casimire/BCN Foundation. -
Fresh oranges, cherries, peaches and other fruits are on display at the East Palo Alto farmers’ market hosted by Fresh Approach from May to November this year. The produce belongs to Castellanos Farms, one of the farms attending the weekly market. Photo by Astrid Casimire/BCN Foundation.
The East Palo Alto market features farmers from Gallardo’s Organic Farm and Ponce Produce in Watsonville, a farming community in the Salinas Valley. Farmers also hail from Castellanos Farms in Tulare County, a more than three-hour drive from East Palo Alto.
Of all the Fresh Approach markets, the East Palo Alto market has the most expansive matching program, which allows recipients of Cal Fresh or other food assistance programs to double their money while shopping. In 2018, Fresh Approach distributed $25,793 in free produce through matching programs at the East Palo Alto market.
Shoppers with Cal Fresh EBT (electronic benefit transfer) cards, formerly known as food stamps, can receive up to $20 in free produce per visit. The matching program goes beyond CalFresh — anyone considered low-income, who goes to the Ravenswood Family Health Center, veterans, or recipients of other food assistance programs like SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) are eligible to match their dollars.
Mendoza said she noticed more people using the Pandemic EBT cards, which were part of a one-time food assistance program to support students who lost access to school meals when schools closed.
Fresh Approach also partnered with local organizations to distribute coupons to low-income families from August to October. The coupons expire in November and can be redeemed for $3 of free produce around the county.
Though the pandemic has halted their in-person classes and limited the routes of its mobile market, Fresh Approach continues to address food insecurity.
Mendoza recalled the story of an old man who hadn’t been coming to the market for a while as he was afraid to leave his home during the pandemic. When he finally attended the market, VeggieRX vouchers in hand, she struck up a conversation with him.
“He told me he hasn’t been eating any fresh food for the last two months,” Mendoza said. “With the market being there, he was finally able to buy some fresh produce.”
Now, Fresh Approach is preparing for the launch of a mobile farmer’s market in the south Bay Area, which will happen at the end of September.
For more information, people can visit their website at freshapproach.org.