Residents in DeKalb without regular access to groceries now have a solution that will come to them.
Sponsored by the DeKalb County Board of Health and the University of Georgia, the DeKalb Mobile Farmers Market was established last summer through a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A school bus was converted into a portable grocery store that now offers fresh fruits and vegetables to the public, mostly sourced from Georgia farmers. The market also educates its customers with healthy recipes and information on how to eat better on a daily basis.
Lynwood Blackmon is an agent with UGA's DeKalb County Extension, and he is the manager of the mobile market program.
“What we try to do is provide access to fresh fruits and vegetables," Blackmon said. “We’re trying to change lifestyles."
The goal of the program is to address food deserts in DeKalb County. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a food desert is defined as a low-income area where a significant portion of residents has minimal access to a supermarket or grocery store. Last year, the program used census data to find these low-income areas and food deserts in DeKalb County, and that was where the mobile market made its stops.
This summer, due to the program's popularity, residents applied for the bus to make a stop in their area. Blackmon said that each location was visited to determine if it was going to reach low-income families and achieve the program's goal. He also explained that they keep prices low so that the food is affordable to those who need it most.
"Every week we’ll price fruits and vegetables form different stores," Blackmon said. "We take an average, and we always want to be at least 20 to 30 cents less.”
As another way of increasing accessibility, the mobile market accepts cash, credit, checks and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, or SNAP cards.
Blackmon credits Zach Williams, DeKalb County executive assistant and chief operating officer, with bringing the program to fruition. Williams was previously the county manager for Fulton County, where he helped kickstart the Fulton Fresh mobile farmers market in 2011. When he moved to DeKalb, he wanted to bring the same concept with him.
The bus makes stops in Decatur, Stone Mountain, Lithonia and Clarkston throughout the summer. For a full list of dates and times for each stop, visit the DeKalb Mobile Market's website.
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