Sunday, April 15, 2012
Farmers market to “pop-up” at Kalani Gardens Apts in Mililani today 2-4:30 p.m., will take food stamps
by Larry Geller
Kanu Hawaii and GreenWheel Food Hub have put together a "pop-up" farmers market for residents of Kalani Gardens Apartments in
Mililani this afternoon, Sunday, April 15 from 2-4:30 p.m. at Kalani Gardens Apartments, 95-081 Kipapa Drive, Mililani.
The idea for a “pop-up” farmers market was inspired by a Honolulu trend of “pop-up” restaurants that appear once or several times at facilities normally run by a full-time restaurant. Unlike the pop-up restaurants, this farmers market is designed to be affordable.
It will even take EBT cards (food stamps, properly SNAP for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).
The ability to use food stamps means that low-income residents will have access to fresh produce instead of wilted supermarket veggies.
Quite likely the farmers will have picked their crop this morning for the market. That’s as fresh as you can get.
Here are some recent tweets. You can follow GreenWheel Food Hub tweets by clicking on the image.
The EBT cards will be accepted through the GreenWheel Grow Bucks Project. The project is part of Kanu Hawaii´s food desert pilot, supported by Kaiser Permanente, which focuses on communities with limited access to fresh, healthy, local produce.
The organizers say the event will feature local chef demonstrations and produce from Mililani farmers. So shoppers will not only be able to buy the best ingredients but learn how to prepare them as well.
Who are the organizers? From the press release:
Founded in 2007, Kanu Hawaii is a nonprofit organization with a mission to encourage and support environmental, economic and social change. Its 15,000 members make individual commitments as simple as I will take shorter showers or I will buy local. To make a commitment and help grow the movement, go to www.kanuhawaii.org.
GreenWheel Food Hub is a social enterprise with a mission to help Hawaii's residents, especially those in low-income communities, gain better access to fresh locally grown food. GreenWheel Food Hub is a fiscally-sponsored project of Feed the Hunger Foundation http://www.greenwheelfoodhub.org/.
EAH Housing is a nonprofit corporation founded with the belief that attractive affordable housing is the cornerstone to sustainable living communities. Established in 1968, in response to the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., EAH now serves over 20,000 seniors, families, students, people with disabilities, frail elderly and the formerly homeless in California and Hawaii http://www.eahhousing.org.
This sounds like a partnership made in Heaven. I hope they are able to turn this “pop-up” into a regularly scheduled farmers market.
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