At 6:30 on a Sunday morning, Eugene Brown III is loading more than 1,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables in plastic totes and stacking them neatly in a commercial Isuzu delivery truck equipped with a refrigerator and freezer.
An hour later, Brown drives to a tiny slip of a park at 29th Street and Strong Avenue in Argentine, a mostly Hispanic neighborhood in Kansas City, Kan. In about 30 minutes, volunteers from the neighborhood help Brown erect a mobile farm stand.
The Beans & Greens Mobile Market has rolled into the food deserts of Argentine, Marlborough and the West Side — older, urban neighborhoods with limited access to fresh, affordable produce. The markets started in mid-May and are slated to run through late October.
“A lot of people say, ‘Is it like an ice cream truck?’ ” says Brown, the mobile market coordinator for Beans & Greens, a program of the Menorah Legacy Foundation. “But we wouldn’t be successful with that kind of model.”
Tomatoes, watermelon and cucumbers are not sold directly from the truck. Instead, tents are lined up and staked to the ground, and storage totes are propped on wood blocks atop folding tables. Color-coded labels indicate if an item is locally grown. The selection is indigenous to the region, so shoppers will not find exotics, such as lemons or oranges.
At the end of the four-hour market, everything goes back into the truck and Brown takes the food back to the Guadalupe Center.
Mourning a loss
A faded Thriftway sign is an eerie reminder of more prosperous times along Strong Avenue. The absence of a grocery store (the nearest is almost 2 miles away) and the lack of public transportation have left seniors at the Cross-Lines Retirement Center and families in two nearby low-income housing facilities stranded.
“We haven’t had a grocery store here for a long time,” says Victor Hernandez, a mobile market volunteer and past president of the Argentine Neighborhood Development Association. “The privately owned Thriftway couldn’t compete. … You could just see the decline in the quality of meat, produce and even the canned goods. The writing was on the wall. We knew it was inevitable that it would close, and even before it closed we were trying to think of options.”
Ann Murguia, a working mother of three small children who married into a politically well-connected family, says convenience is paramount to her daily routine. When the Thriftway closed in 2006, she was motivated to act.
“It was the catalyst for me running for office. I was furious. The community was furious,” says Murguia, who was elected a Wyandotte County commissioner the next year, representing the 3rd District, which encompasses Rosedale and Argentine.
The geography of Argentine makes the neighborhood even more desperate than a food desert. “We’re really a food island,” Murguia says. “With the railroad and the highway, there is no way to walk to a grocery store. You’d have to walk across the Kaw River or across the tracks of one of the busiest railway (freight) stations in the country.”
Recently Murguia has been working to bring a Save-A-Lot to the community. The discount retailer has signed a letter of intent, but finding a 16,000-square-foot space has been difficult in a community originally built for more modest mom-and-pop shops. In the meantime, neighborhood leaders are counting on the mobile market to fill the nutrition gap.
Looking for the right fit
Beans & Greens started as a program to help get more fresh foods into the hands of low-income families by doubling the amount of food assistance they receive when they make a purchase at a farmers market. Benefits cap at $30 a week, and matching money is provided through private fundraising.
Seven stationary markets participated in the program in 2010. This year, that number has jumped to 15 markets, including the mobile market.
While the mobile market is considered a novel idea in the Midwest, and the Kansas City program is attracting national attention, “every market needs a different approach,” says Gayla Brockman, executive director of the Menorah Legacy Foundation.
Murguia agrees.
She has never been a big fan of farmers markets for urban-core residents. She thinks of them as hip and trendy destinations to leisurely shop, meet neighbors, sip coffee and read the newspaper. That concept works for Rosedale, which has more of the “eclectic urban pioneer crowd,” but not necessarily for Argentine’s working poor families.
Likewise, community gardens haven’t really taken off in Argentine because many male residents work multiple jobs, leaving little time for volunteer work in a garden, and culture dictates female residents care for the home and children, not work outdoors, according to community organizers.
Even usage of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is different in Argentine than in other neighborhoods. Although chalkboards at the mobile market advertise double SNAP benefits, cash is the norm.
“Culturally and historically, Hispanics don’t use government programs,” Murguia says.
Impromptu veggie cooking lessons
Brown is young, well-spoken and energetic, often working 50 hours between Thursday and Sunday, when the mobile markets are in full swing. .
He played football at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Mo., and graduated in 1998 with a degree in science, business administration and computer science. He worked in human resources for a decade before moving to nonprofit work with the Front Porch Alliance.
He took the job as mobile market coordinator for Beans & Greens a year ago. He describes the job as “a blast” and “the opportunity of a lifetime.”
As he talks with customers, it becomes clear Brown also knows what it’s like to live in a food desert.
“I didn’t grow up with fresh stuff. I didn’t have any produce that wasn’t from a can,” says Brown, who grew up at East 35th Street and South Park Avenue, four blocks west of Prospect Avenue. “Once you find a difference and get exposed to it, it’s hard to go back. It’s great to be able to talk from experience.”
Out for a drive to check out the neighborhood, new resident John Horton stops to see what kind of produce is for sale.
“I was driving around and saw the signs. Can you boil cabbage?” he asks.
“I’m not all that familiar with cabbage. Can you help him?” Brown says to a young female volunteer.
“It doesn’t have to be fancy. I’m a bachelor and don’t know how to cook,” he says to the volunteer almost apologetically. “I’m sure I’m going to have to call my grandma when I get home. When in doubt, call Grandma.”
But as Horton pays for the cabbage, Brown returns from the cab of the truck with a seasonal vegetable cookbook produced by the Missouri Extension. The two men thumb through, looking for a simple recipe Horton can handle.
Brown originally learned how to cook “to impress women.” He also started gardening a few years ago. “I figured I’d rather pay 60 cents for a packet of seeds than $1 for two bell peppers,” he says.
Adding meat to the produce mix
It costs about $100,000 a year to run the mobile market, a sum that includes a vehicle, staff, insurance, market supplies and a budget for produce.
But even with the necessary funding, Brockman knows the concept could so easily fall flat without just the right coordinator.
“You have to have somebody who understands and is willing to go into tough markets,” Brockman says. “And I don’t mean tough in the sense of violence or crime. I mean in the sense of people who don’t come from a tradition to value fresh produce. We hit a home run with Eugene.”
Helping local farmers and keeping dollars in the community is part of the business model. Brown has put together a group of eight growers from Princeton, Mo., known collectively as Highpoint Farms, to supply the majority of the produce for the mobile market. Liberty Fruit, a wholesale distributor, fills in with additional quantities and non-local items.
The produce mix differs slightly, depending on the growing season and the needs and wants of the neighborhood residents. On Sunday, the totes are filled with sweet potatoes that can be baked and stirred into milk, all the ingredients necessary for pico de gallo, fat cucumbers perfect for sprinkling with lime, salt and cayenne, and jalapeño, serrano and poblano peppers.
Shortly after opening the markets in spring, Brown added boutique meats, including brats, bacon, ground lamb, skirt steak and chorizo, to provide a one-stop shopping experience. He’s also adding fresh eggs in the coming weeks.
“About the only thing we’re not licensed to sell is milk,” he says.
If residents need a gallon, they can walk to Figueroa’s Bakery, which keeps a few jugs in a cooler beside the Mexican bread and pastries.
Guerrilla marketing
Brown and his volunteers wait for the first Mass to end at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church across the street. Only a trickle of customers stop, but a larger crowd wanders by after the second Mass. Placing the market next to the church was a strategic marketing move.
“It seemed like a good way to get the word out,” Brown says, since advertising has been mostly “grassroots and guerrilla.”
Joe Liera strides up to the produce stand dressed in jogging attire and listening to music over headphones. He saw a flier posted at the local Dollar Store. He buys corn, carrots, potatoes and cilantro, all ingredients to go with a Sunday pot roast.
“My daughters will be happy,” he says. “I’m making what they call a ‘Caucasian meal.’ I’m happy because I walked eight blocks and got my veggies. And I got my exercise.”
Dena Moore drives up in a van to shop with her 21-year-old son, Jonathan. They live in Berkshire Village Townhouses, a moderate-income housing cooperative. Moore had a flier stuck to her refrigerator for two weeks before she found the time to shop. “I’m impressed,” she says. “If I had more money, I’d stock up.”
Another way to get the word out is Spanish-speaking volunteers.
Jesse Valdez jokes that he speaks “enough Spanish to defend myself.” Born and raised in Argentine, he spent most of his career as a manager for the Milgram’s grocery store chain, which left Kansas City in the early 1980s. Now retired and living in Merriam, he comes back on Sunday mornings to volunteer.
In addition to his language skills, Valdez lends a trained eye to the produce display.
“The reason I’m here today is to do something for the neighborhood that gave me so much,” Valdez says as he thoughtfully inspects the wilting tops of blemish-free radishes. “If I can help one family out, or one elderly person, I want to participate.”