Big Ideas,
Real Impact.
The Grand Valley is an agricultural area where many varieties of produce are grown and sold locally. Unfortunately, income and geographic disparities make these foods inaccessible to many community members. Furthermore, transportation is a pervasive challenge in our community and a major barrier to nutritious food access specifically. The Harvest Mobile Market is an innovative program which was designed with insight from and piloted in collaboration with our Community Advisory Board (CAB), a group of community members from various backgrounds who currently use or have used CFB’s programs and work to address these issues.
We are thrilled to relaunch the Harvest Mobile Market to bring regionally grown produce across the Grand Valley in partnership with primary care providers throughout the 2026 growing season. It will operate on a suggested donation basis allowing participants to choose their donation amount per pound of food on a sliding scale. In addition to providing access to local produce for consumers, this program also supports our local agricultural economy and small scale vegetable producers. We are relaunching it this year in a small way to get the ball rolling again, working only with healthcare sites as a commitment to our mission to address community health concerns related to a county-wide
During the grant-funded pilot period produce was given away at no cost, but over 1,600 shoppers completed an exit survey where they indicated how much they would be willing/able to pay for the groceries they received. The data collected showed that a donation-based model should be able to cover the cost of the produce since we are able to purchase wholesale directly from farmers. Community Food Bank is subsidizing staffing and operation costs through donations and grant funding to pair the market with bilingual resource navigation and nutrition enrichment information. Our hope is that If the market can generate enough revenue to cover the fresh produce, the mobile market should be sustainable as a permanent program.