A full-service grocery store on wheels: Youngstown mobile market to address food insecurity
Community organizations are hitting the road with a full service mobile food market to remove transportation and accessibility barriers for residents without access to grocery stores.
ACTION — Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing Our Neighborhoods — will be providing residents access to fresh foods and produce with the Mahoning Valley Mobile Market that will drive through low-income communities in Youngstown and around the Mahoning Valley all year round.
About 80,500 residents of Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties faced food insecurity in impoverished areas and exceeded the national average for food insecurity in 2019, according to Feeding America.
More than 326,000 mobile meals were delivered to residents in Mahoning, Trumbull, Columbiana and Ashtabula counties through programs at the Jewish Community Center and United Way in Youngstown, Mahoning Matters reported in December.
Through its pop-up food markets hosted between June and September, ACTION has catered to the large number of senior citizens or families without transportation, who have no access to fresh foods on a weekly basis, lead organizer Vicki Vicars said.
“Instead of providing an opportunity for folks to purchase what they want once a week, June to September, we can increase it to a couple times a day, 12 months a year. … There’s more accessibility for people,” she said.
Vicars said the mobile market vehicle is being custom-made to include refrigeration and freezer space, so more produce can be sold. The 28-foot bus will be stocked with a variety of meats and grocery staples, she said.
“We can add eggs, fruits and cheese. … So we’re almost like a mini full-service grocery store on wheels,” she said.
The mobile market will travel to low-income areas like Youngstown Metropolitan Housing Authority developments; International Towers, a handicapped-accessible senior community in downtown Youngstown; and through low-income neighborhoods designated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as “food deserts,” Vicars said.
Mahoning Matters reported that about a third of people living in Youngstown and Warren in 2018 had income below the poverty level — nearly 22,000 Youngstown residents and more than 13,000 Warren residents — and those cities had the highest concentrations of poverty in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, according to U.S. Census Bureau data compiled by Youngstown State University and Healthy Community Partnership.
Vicars said food insecurity can lead to poor health outcomes for residents in the Valley.
“We know that when people eat more fruits and vegetables, their health is better and when they’re eating healthier, they’re healthier,” she said. “Our goal is to continue to provide this service until the USDA says Youngstown is no longer a food desert.”
The mobile market vehicle will cost about $275,000, including everything needed inside like refrigeration and freezer space and payroll for full-time drivers and the other workers inside, Vicars said.
“We have been funded $150,000 so far, and I believe we are going to get another $60,000 by the end of next week,” she said. “We are meeting with a variety of other funders in the next couple of weeks, so we’ll hit that $275,000.”
Here’s how you can help
ACTION is taking a step further to bridge the food inaccessibility gap by providing monthly $25 vouchers for residents who live at or below 200% of the federal poverty line and live in USDA-designated food deserts, Vicars said.
The Foundation for Appalachian Ohio chose to work with ACTION to raise $5,000 to help meet its goal of providing free food and produce to 1,000 Youngstown residents.
Through the Mobile Market Perks Program, an individual or a family can receive a $25 meal voucher each month and buy food of their choice, Vicars said. The program will cost about $300,000 to provide 1,000 residents with a voucher each month for a year, she said.
“[The vouchers] will be funded through some donors and that money would go to fund those coupons,” she said.
Vicars said the organization tried the voucher program during their pop-up food markets in the summer and said the need for a perks program was significant.
“Anybody that showed up at the market that wanted a $10 voucher could use that toward their purchase,” she said. “There were some people that said, ‘Well, I’ve got six kids in my family. Can I have two?’ and we would do that.”
The mobile market will also accept other senior produce perk programs like SNAP and Double Up Food Bucks, Vicars said.
Community members can donate toward the voucher program on the foundation’s website under “Make a Donation” and help ACTION meet its $300,000 goal.
‘Crucial to restoring a community’
Jeff Magada, executive director of Flying HIGH Inc. in Youngstown, said the workforce development agency’s clients can work at the mobile market throughout the year, while also giving back to the community and gaining job skills.
Flying HIGH helps people in need of alcohol and drug treatment, peer support and case management services learn job skills and become marketable for employment, Magada said.
“These kinds of programs are excellent, particularly for people that have a lot of what we call employment barriers, and that they’re able to acclimate again to the work environment,” he said.
“This initiative now gives our programming expanded availability to be able to put people through this work acclimation all year-round.”
GROW Urban Farm on the North Side of Youngstown is a sector of Flying HIGH that will be supplying fresh produce to the market during the spring and summer months, Vicars said.
“We really want to support local urban farms and producers as much as possible,” she said.
Magada said the farm works seasonally to bring fresh produce to communities across Northeast Ohio — specifically to communities in need of local produce in the Valley.
“Being able to bring groceries and main produce like milk and things that are staples in your house to people who have limited mobility is crucial to restoring a community,” he said.