BY KEKE VENCILL
July 10, 2021
BOSTON (WHDH) - A farmer’s market is working to bring healthy and affordable — and in some cases free — food to Mattapan.
The Mattapan Food & Fitness Coalition and Project Bread kicked off the market Saturday. Volunteers run the market and vendors accept a wide range of food assistance benefits, and children under 18 can get free meals.
“Mattapan is classified as food apartheid, they used to call it a food desert, and there’s not many healthy choices here,” said Shavel’le Olivier of the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition. “There should be no reason why individuals in the Mattapan community and all communities should be without food. No resident, no human, should be without food … food should really be a human right.”
Highlights from MFFC
Food security has been a major issue in Massachusetts and more specifically in the community of Mattapan. Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition has taken the steps since 2006 to address this issue. On Saturday, July 10th, we partnered with @projectbread to share how we use our farmers market - the Mattapan Square Farmers Market - to bring fresh, organic, and affordable produce that is accessible to the community. We were excited to be joined by @teambrandy617, @andreaforboston, @annissaforbos, @wutrain, @ayannapressley.
On that Saturday we:
* served 132 residents and gave out $1,035 worth of coupons that went straight to our farmers
* gave out 30+ bikes
* saw our community sell out all 5 of our farmers/vendors completely (or almost completely)
*served 30 summer meals
See here link from Channel 7: https://whdh.com/news/no-human-should-be-without-food-farmers-market-in-mattapan-providing-free-healthy-meals-for-kids/amp/
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