You probably have a favorite place to buy fresh, local, organic produce. It might be a grocery store or a farmers' market, but it's usually just down the street or a short bike ride away. You might also use the car to go to a larger farmers' market, like Denio's in Roseville, the Sunday farmers' market on W street in Sacramento, or the Davis farmers' market in the park. Seemingly, there is produce all around us and access to it. After all, we are in California where produce is grown for the world. Surely there is produce available in all neighborhoods of Sacramento, right? Wrong!

Many of the lower income areas of Sacramento have inadequate grocery stores where produce is over-priced, poor quality, and limited in selection. In addition, these areas lack farmers' markets and traveling to and from a farmers' market may be an all-day task, especially if using public transportation. It may take three to four bus transfers and several hours to gain access to fresh produce on any given day of the week.

To right this wrong in one neighborhood, Soil Born Farms, the Health Education Council, and the Del Paso Heights Mutual Assistance Network created a Saturday farmers' market in Del Paso Heights at the Robertson Community Center. Its blend of neighborhood grown and culturally appropriate produce, heirloom produce from Soil Born Farm, and fruit from local growers makes this market a successful collaboration that gives variety to the market at low prices.

This market was the first in the Sacramento area to use wireless electronic benefit transfer (EBT) technology enabling people on food assistance programs to purchase produce at the market. This much needed feature at farmers' markets still remains widely unavailable at most Sacramento farmers' markets.

This project has been a model for groups in Fresno and in Sacramento, and it has spurred a new generation of smaller farmers' markets called urban farm stands.

The idea for the farm stands originated in Berkeley and Oakland and was replicated here in Sacramento by a local nonprofit group called the Alchemists Community Development Corporation (CDC). In the Alchemist CDC's inaugural season last year, a farm stand was set up every Tuesday night at the J. Neely Johnson Park in Alkali Flats and featured fruits, vegetables, and local crafts. The farm stand found its mark with the neighborhood and proved that bringing fresh organic produce to underserved areas could be done in Sacramento.

With the farm stand's success still fresh in their minds, Alchemist CDC teamed up with proven organic leaders at Soil Born Farms, nutrition experts at West Sacramento's Health Education Council, and the Sacramento Mutual Housing Association and wrote a successful grant funded by First Five Sacramento and the California Wellness Foundation that will support twelve more farm stands in the Sacramento area over the next three years. These urban farm stands will also have cooking demonstrations and nutritional information at each site. Three sites, including the Alkali Flats location, will open by June of this year.

For more information contact: Randy Stannard at Soil Born Farms (916-456-9687) or Lisa Nelson at Alchemist CDC (916-454-4887).

And for those of you wanting to grow your own organic produce at a community garden, you have probably encountered waiting lists for plots. In some cases, this wait can be many years. To help address the need for more community gardens and city parks, the City of Sacramento is taking ideas from the public in a process called the Parks and Recreation Programming Guide.

For more information on this process visit http://www.cityofsacramento.org/parksandrecreation/pdf/prpg/08-prpg-newproject-req-form.pdf or call 916-808-5200.

As you can see, when people get involved things can happen!

Be the change that you wish to see in the world!