BUFFALO, N.Y. — The best way to combat a food desert? Add a little green — vegetables, that is. And some orange and red ones and lots of fresh fruit, too.
Massachusetts Avenue Project's Mobile Market has been providing fresh fruits and vegetables to neighborhoods that don't have close access to grocery stores.
"In some of the neighborhoods we're in, everyone is doing all of their grocery shopping at like a Dollar General-type place that has nothing fresh," said Danielle Rovillo, MAP's markets director.
Their traveling market makes different stops Tuesday through Friday from June until November. The produce grown in their garden or sourced from local farmers is then sold at an affordable price, accepting cash, SNAP or WIC.
While the concept of a mobile market is a way to help those neighborhoods that don't have other options, Massachusetts Avenue Project hopes that this will help neighborhoods, like the Fruit Belt, establish a more permanent solution.
"I hope that that business that we've built and that momentum that we built can translate to either a permanent farmer's market in a neighborhood," Rovillo said. "Sometimes I try to talk to corner store owners and say 'hey I'm a couple blocks from you, this is the kind of volume I'm selling of these items, you could carry these items in your store and I could go to a different neighborhood and help them,' so I hope that it translates like that over time."