Johnson County households experiencing food insecurity can receive boxes of free, fresh, local produce through November with our 2020 Farm Stands program. Sign up here and/or help us spread the word! The program visits 11 locations that have high poverty rates, low rates of personal transportation and are usually more than a half mile away from a grocery store each month. This year’s events include a mix of in-person and contact-free distribution, with mask wearing required for staff and volunteers and 6-foot distancing maintained as much as possible.
Pre-COVID-19 we would set up alongside CommUnity’s mobile food pantry, Antelope Lending Library and other agencies providing services to residents in these areas. The COVID-19 2020 schedule has us physically visiting the sites at a set time each month in order to provide some fresh produce, but primarily to sign up households for a regular delivery (weekly or biweekly depending on demand and availability) through the end of November.
Households can “sign up” online OR by verbally sharing information at one of our scheduled locations, with Field to Family staff and volunteers filling out the form to minimize contact. Since our walk-in cooler is full of farmers market orders Thursday through Saturday, and our Grow: Johnson County donation comes in on Mondays, we are offering free fresh produce to families on Tuesdays and Wednesdays through November.
Our Food Access Intern, Molly, started rolling the stands out earlier this month at Forest View Trailer Park, Capitol House Apartments, Breckenridge Estates Mobile Home Park, Ecumenical Towers Livable Community, and Cole’s Community Mobile Home Park. She signed up families to receive fresh produce boxes. We will continue to sign up households at these locations as well as at Regency Mobile Home Community, Parkview Mobile Home Court, Western Hills Mobile Estates, Sunrise Mobile Home Village, and Modern Manor Mobile Home Park. Since we haven’t been successful in connecting with anyone at some sites yet, our schedule is tentative.
We are also pursuing additional monthly sites at Dream Center and the Center for Worker Justice, and perhaps others, since the public events we have set up at in the past have all been cancelled/postponed. We will ask these agencies to have households sign up for distribution at their locations on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.
In addition, we have partnered with Table to Table and have officially become a receiving agency for their new backyard garden produce donation program, as well as their gleaning program! This has added to the variety of our offerings in a major way. This week (the last week of July), Farm Stand households will have produce to choose from from Grow Johnson County, THREE local farms (Oaknoll Prison farm, Blueyah, Trowel and Error) plus, our order from the Field to Family Food Hub which procures produce from several other local farms!
Here is our 2020 schedule for us to sign up households (with some produce available) with more to be added:
First Tuesday: 2:30 – 3:30 PM > Forest View Trailer Park
4:15 – 5:30 PM > Cole’s Community Mobile Home Park
6:00 – 7:15 PM > Capitol House Apartments
First Wednesday: 6:00 – 7:15 PM > Regency Mobile Home Community
Second Tuesday: 2:30 – 3:30 PM > Parkview Mobile Home Court
4:00 – 5:30 PM > Western Hills Mobile Estates
5:30 – 7:30 PM > Ecumenical Towers Livable Community
Third Tuesday: 2:30 – 3:30 PM > Sunrise Mobile Home Village
4:15 – 5:15 PM > Modern Manor Mobile Home Park
5:30 – 7:00 PM > Breckenridge Estates Mobile Home park
This schedule is subject to change.