They call it the "Veggie Van." It collects vegetables from various community gardens around Easton, as well as the urban farm on the South Side, and brings them to one convenient location.
On Tuesday the van—it was actually a pick-up truck, but let's not quibble—was at Centennial Park, during the Summer Nights program.
It got there at 5:30 p.m., fully stocked. Twenty minutes later?
"It was decimated," said Lynne Holden, a volunteer for the program, who stood handing out collard green, squash, basil and other plants.
Fresh food went quickly, residents here say, because it's hard to come by without driving out of the city to a grocery store, or going to the twice-a-week Easton Farmers' Market.
Larry Malinconico, a professor at Lafayette College, which is helping run the Veggie Van program, puts it more starkly.
"The West Ward is a food desert," he said.
The term food desert applies to lower income areas that don't have easy access to grocery stores with fresh, affordable food.
But don't just take Malinconico's word for it. The neighborhood meets the food desert standard according to the USDA, in that—among other factors—20 percent of its households have no vehicle and live more than a half-mile from a supermarket.
"You have to go outside the city to get fresh produce," said Esther Guzman of the West Ward Neighborhood Partnership.
Lafayette got involved with food access in the West Ward last year as part of one of its "tech clinics," which ask a group of students try to solve a "real world problem," said Malinconico.
In this case, he said, they used the "ice cream truck model," only rather than roaming the city with fresh vegetables, they bring them to one place.
Next week, that place will be the community garden at 10th and Pine streets from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Monday.
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