Imagine standing on a street corner with just a few dollars in your pocket. Your minimum wage job doesn’t pay enough to cover rent, childcare, transportation, and bills. The only places to buy food in your neighborhood are a couple of gas stations, a corner store and fast food chains. What are you going to do? How are you going to feed your family?
Down the road comes a Veggie Mobile.
A service of Capital Roots, Veggie Mobiles are refrigerated produce markets with a food-truck vibe.
Visiting communities across 37 neighborhoods near Albany, New York each week, Capital Roots’ eco-friendly Veggie Mobiles distribute 90 varieties of fruits and vegetables. Curious street pedestrians on a first Veggie Mobile encounter are invited to “Taste and Take” — where they can taste a delicious vegetable-based meal and take a free bag of the produce home to try the recipe.
Capital Roots’ Veggie Mobiles also cater to local health centers’ high-risk patients — those seeking treatment for diet-related disease, like diabetes and hypertension. Following clinic check-ups, patients receive an actual prescription for healthy food: a Veggie RX coupon book full of weekly coupons. Each coupon is good for one big bag of produce at the Veggie Mobile.
They also accept cash or SNAP benefits, and even have a Virtual Veggie Mobile program where you can pre-order affordable farm fresh produce online! As Capital Roots works to nourish communities, their creative strategies are improving access to healthy foods in low-income communities, reducing the impact of poor nutrition on public health and supporting local farmers.
For more on the great work Capital Roots has been doing, visit CapitalRoots.org
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