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Kindergarteners Visit the Mobile Farmers Market

Where does our food come from? What kinds of foods can we find in Massachusetts during the fall? Why can we grow tomatoes, but not bananas, in our Central Massachusetts backyards?

These are just a few of the questions the students in the Worcester Kindergarten Initiative (KI) ponder over the course of the school year. The Kindergarten Initiative, a collaboration between  Massachusetts Farm to School and the Worcester Public Schools, is a food education program that teaches young students about healthy eating, local agriculture, and how things grow. Each fall, Kindergarten Initiative students are visited by the Regional Environmental Council’s (REC) Mobile Farmers Market to kick off their explorations of these themes.

The Mobile Farmers Market, a refurbished Worcester Regional Transport Authority (WRTA) van, was developed by the REC in 2012 as another means to combat food insecurity in Worcester. While there were already two farmers markets running in the city, studies showed that many residents could not purchase from these facilities as they lacked the transportation to reach the markets. A mobile market, however, would be able to bring fresh fruits and vegetables to neighborhoods across the city.

mobileDuring its first year, the Mobile Farmers Market ran two days a week, carrying fresh produce to ten stops around the city. During its second year, the REC was able to partner with students from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) who outfitted the van with a self-designed solar-powered refrigeration system, allowing the REC to sell eggs, dairy, and meat, as well as produce. Today, the Mobile Farmers Market is in its third season, running three days per week and making fifteen stops around Worcester.

This year, Kindergarten Initiative Mobile Market visits begin in the classroom. Nutrition educators from UMass Extension lead an introductory activity that prepares students for a scavenger hunt. Students talk about their favorite fruits and vegetables and then move to making hypotheses of which kinds of produce might be found on the mobile market and why. Do we grow bananas in Worcester? Why or why not? What kind of weather do bananas like? To conclude, kindergartners are given a scavenger hunt which they take outside to help them explore the farmers market. At the market, students match the vegetables and fruits on their sheets to those on display and educators from the REC tell them about each one. Finally, the kindergarteners climb aboard the van for a tour. They peek into coolers and vegetable bins, check out the sink and stairs, and when they hop out of the back doors, they are given a bag of fresh, local apples and recipes to take home to share with their families.

The REC’s mobile farmers market is not only a wonderful vehicle to bring produce to food insecure areas, but great educational tool as well. We could all use some reminding of where our food comes from and how lucky we are to have farmers and organizations in our cities and towns who are working to make eating more sustainable, nutritious, and delicious. Thank you to the REC, UMass Extension, and Foppema’s Farm for connecting our kindergartners with their fruits and veggies!



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