From the Frontline: A Tale of Kale

Although it is a bit more of a challenge to cook using only seasonal fruits and vegetables in January, one of the most exciting things for me about this new site is that the class actually coincides with the Saturday farmer’s market at the park, and our participants will be able to take home fresh produce from the market at no personal cost.

From day one, our class location at the Farmer’s Market served our participants in a manner that I was able to witness for the first time during my tenure with OFL.

After serving fresh, raw kale in our Asian Noodles with Peanut Butter Sauce recipe, a mother and her teenaged daughter went out immediately to buy kale from the farmer’s market because they were so impressed by how tasty it was. Waverly, who attended the class with her mom because it was sandwiched in between their Saturday morning “Biggest Loser” workout at church and her mom’s scrapbooking class at the park, said that she would even try to eat the kale in new recipes as an after-school snack.  They had never eaten raw kale before, and had only ever purchased it to cook with at the supermarket. Their willingness to try new dishes combined with their immediate access to the fresh ingredients in those dishes provided for a tangible, truly applicable learning experience.

Although I was thrilled with our participants’ adventures with winter greens, I quickly realized that physical proximity to fresh farmer’s market produce is only one part of the battle in working toward securing more access to fresh produce for low-income families. We will also need to address the availability of SNAP and WIC benefits at farmers markets with our participants. Although all of the participants in our Eating Right class qualify for federal assistance, virtually none of them use their SNAP or WIC benefits at farmer’s markets. According to the USDA, 753 Farmers’ Markets are authorized to accept SNAP benefits nationwide, and 52 of those markets are at 118 locations in the state of California, including Virginia Avenue Park. These markets are equipped to accept wired devices (like EBT cards), scrip or a combination of both, and the payoff for consumers and farmers when they take part in this system is twofold: low-income families have more access to fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables, and farmers receive more funds from SNAP redemptions.

I hope that we can continue to work with farmer’s markets and community members who qualify for federal assistance like the participants in our Eating Right class so that these resources do not continue to go untapped. A literal cornucopia of produce waits for people like Waverly and her mother Gina, who, I hope at least, won’t just stop at kale.