Amy Klein, executive director of Troy-based Capital District Community Gardens, was thumbing through a magazine a few years ago when she happened across an article about a mobile grocery store in Oakland, Calif.

“I thought it was a neat idea that they were taking grocery items into inner-city neighborhoods to service those neighbors. I thought, wouldn’t it be great if we could do something like that with produce, because we’re interested in fresh fruits and vegetables. That’s what our focus is,” she said. “I clipped the article that I had seen in the magazine, and I thought if funding ever came up that maybe we could give that a try.”

Three years later, what began as an abstract idea has been realized thanks to a 15-year grant from the New York State Department of Health that became available during 2005. For more than one month now, the aptly named Veggie Mobile has cruised along Capital Region streets bringing wholesale-priced produce to low-income neighborhoods in Albany, Schenectady and Troy.

“It’s phenomenal,” Klein said, describing residents’ response to the Veggie Mobile project. “It’s really beyond our wildest expectations. I really thought it was going to take people a while to get used to the idea. I didn’t think people were really going to know what to make of it, you know, maybe be a little suspicious of it and think it was kind of kooky.”

Each week, the Veggie Mobile makes regularly scheduled stops—three in Troy and two each in Albany and Schenectady—on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Since the Veggie Mobile’s inaugural run back in mid April, the number of customers has quadrupled, Klein said, from about 50 to 400 per week.

“The focus of the program is to bring fresh fruits and vegetables into low-income areas that are not being served by full- service supermarkets,” Klein explained.

Last Friday (May 25), the Veggie Mobile was parked outside the most frequented of the two stops in Albany, St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church on Whitehall Road. From here, the nearest full-service grocery store is nearly two miles away.

Even before the box truck pulled into the parking lot, customers were waiting. Others were en route, on foot from the apartment complex that’s adjacent to St. Sophia.

At one side of the truck, a doorway and steps served as the entrance. A chalkboard affixed to the open door revealed the day’s prices for the produce, which is purchased through the Menands Market, a regional cooperative farmers’ market and wholesaler. Once local growers begin producing, Klein said produce also would be purchased directly from these sources.

“We want to try to buy as much as we can locally to help the local economy,” she added.

Today, at St. Sophia, boxes of kiwi, squash, strawberries and limes lined shelving units arranged in an L shape against two of the walls. Two top-open refrigerator units contained additional selections.

Toward the back of the box, a scale and register were set up, allowing customers to make their payment—even food stamps are accepted—and proceed down a ramp from the back of the truck to the parking lot.

As the customers, the majority of whom were elderly women, perused the shelves inside, David Verner stood outside the truck and pointed up at the solar panels fastened to the top. Verner, who provided the equipment and time necessary to install the truck’s solar-power system, is one of the several individuals that helped make the Veggie Mobile become a reality through material and monetary donations that were used to cover the project’s start-up costs.

After pointing out the solar panels, Verner continued the tour of the truck’s power system. He kneeled at the driver’s side of the truck box and pulled open an underneath compartment to expose a line of six large batteries containing enough power to run the truck’s refrigeration units as well as pump tunes through the sound system’s speaker.

“You could plug it in, but we haven’t had to yet,” Verner said, noting the Veggie Mobile’s ability to self-sustain.

Making the Veggie Mobile even more environmentally friendly is its reliance on biodiesel as a fuel source.

In addition to the mobile-market project, the Veggie Mobile is utilized as part of the Capital District Community Garden’s Taste and Take program. During these events, which take place on Wednesdays, the Veggie Mobile stops at area housing projects such as Steamboat Square in Albany and Steinmetz Homes in Schenectady.

“It’s a giveaway program,” Klein said. “What we do is we do tastings of different fruits and vegetables and then we give away fruits and vegetables that we’ve tasted with folks.”

Anything that’s left over after the Taste and Take program and the three days of Veggie Mobile stops is donated to food pantries.

“It’s all about health,” Klein said. “As a society, more and more we’re concerned about obesity, especially in children. We’re concerned about the health crisis that our nation is facing, whether it’s heart disease or diabetes. There are so many issues that we’re being plagued by as a society. We’re looking to try to fix those health crises, those health issues, but here’s a way that we can deal with those health issues before they become a problem by helping people eat healthier and lead a healthier lifestyle.”

—Nicole Klaas

nklaas@metroland.net

No Soldier Left Behind