The Jamestown Mobile Market at the James Prendergast Library

Jamestown Public Market‘s Mobile Market begins its season today.

The Mobile Market brings fresh, local food to five sites around Jamestown on every Wednesday and Thursday through September 28.

Jamestown Public Market Food Access Coordinator Emily Le Blanc is overseeing the Mobile Market this season.

The Mobile Market buys produce from Abers Acres, Hidden Valley Farm, and baked goods and jams from an Amish baker, Lizzie Byler.

Every Wednesday the Mobile Market drives to local farms and bakers to pick up food for distribution. It then drives back to Jamestown with St. Luke’s Episcopal Church as the first stop. The church runs the Eat Fresh, Do Good CSA, the proceeds of which help support the Mobile Market.

The Mobile Market then drives to various locations throughout the city which include:
– The Resource Center at 890 E. Second Street, to be there from 10am to 11am.
– James Prendergast Library, from 11:30am to 12:30.
– The Chautauqua Center, staying from 1:00 to 2:00.

The Mobile Market makes two stops on Thursdays:
– Silver Tree Seniors at 8 Crane Street, from 1:00 to 2:00pm
– Bush Elementary, from 2:30 to 3:30pm.

The Mobile Market accepts cash, cards, SNAP, the Farmers Market Nutrition Program, Veggie Rx, and, starting in July, Double Up Food Bucks.

The Jamestown Public Market is continuing a collaboration with Office of the Aging’s Local Roots Program. Thanks to a grant via Blue Cross Blue Shield of WNY, a new vehicle has been added to the roster. This new sprinter van will be refrigerated, and utilized to bring produce for OFA’s program to various senior living sites across Chautauqua County.

For more information on the Jamestown Mobile Market or the Veggie RX program, visit www.jtownpublicmarket.org

Volunteers assist in packaging CSA shares during the Jamestown Public Market’s 2022 market season

The Jamestown Public Market and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church are celebrating National CSA week the week of February 20 through 25.

Public Market Director Linnea Haskins said CSA stands for “Community Supported Agriculture, “You invest in a farm ahead of the growing season and in exchange you basically get the product that they grow or raise. So most CSA shares are vegetables or fruits, produce, but there are also flower shares, meat shares, some people do bread and eggs.”

Haskins said a lot of farms like to do CSAs because it helps expand their customer base and guarantees income prior to the growing season, “So, they can rely on that income to help them to grow what they need to grow, and harvest, and pay for any supplies, etc. But it’s a wonderful way for people to invest local.”

The Jamestown Public Market will be offering its third season of the ‘Eat Fresh, Do Good CSA’ this summer.

Working with local farms, such as organic produce farm Abers Acres and Amish-led Hidden Valley Produce, the Jamestown Public Market cultivates three sizes of CSA shares community members can ‘invest’ in prior to the growing season.

The cost of each share covers the produce people will receive week to week for 16 weeks, from June to September, as well as a donation towards the Jamestown Mobile Market program.

For more information on how to sign up for an ‘Eat Fresh, Do Good CSA’ share visit https://www.jtownpublicmarket.org/csa

Other local farms that have shown interest in being in the Farm to School Program include: Hamlet Farms, Busti Cider Mill, Roots & Wings Farm, Erdle Farm, The Lembke Farm, Earth Song Farm, The Vanstrom Dairy and Toboggan Hill Farm.

Across the country, “Farm to School” is increasingly recognized as an effective and integrated approach to addressing several issues simultaneously: child and adolescent health, diet, school meal quality, food & agriculture system awareness and
understanding, local agricultural market viability, and food and agriculture system entrepreneurship.

Objectives of Farm to School include:

• Providing healthy, nutritious meals in school cafeterias
• Improving students’ nutrition and food literacy
• Presenting engaging health and nutrition education and;
• Supporting local farms