Community Action Duluth’s Mobile Market has been in operation for a month now, so far with resounding success! As explained previously, the Mobile Market is a refrigerated van which visits neighborhoods to provide produce, dairy, canned and dried goods, and some household products, all at affordable prices. Locally produced goods are also featured at the Mobile Market. If you are interested, you can pre-order products here and pick them up at one of their scheduled market locations. Cash and credit or debit is accepted as well as EBT.
Aly Brewer is one of the Mobile Market team members. She works at CAD as an AmeriCorps VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), which is a federally-funded public service program that aims to help others and meet community needs. May will mark her ninth month of service at CAD, and she plans to continue her work with AmeriCorps for another year. She has been involved in a number of initiatives at CAD, from participating in field work to designing flyers, as well as launching the Mobile Market, which she says has been the biggest undertaking so far. Her favorite part of running the Mobile Market is seeing the customers’ faces when she tallies their totals. People are surprised by the reasonable prices, and this reminds Aly why the program started in the first place: to provide affordable and accessible groceries to members of the community who have been previously underserved.
So far, the Mobile Market has completed 107 market transactions. The Mobile Market team creates events and shares them on CAD’s Facebook page so participants can know when the Mobile Market is coming to their neighborhood. There is approximately one pick-up per week, at three different locations in town. In Morgan Park, the Mobile Market will be visiting the Good Fellowship Community Center on the first Wednesday of the month. On the second Wednesday, the Mobile Market will be at the Lincoln Park Community Center. Finally, Harbor Highlands will be serviced at the Harbor Highlands Community Center on the fourth Saturday of the month. They are also working with community organizations in Duluth to help spread the word about Mobile Market.
If you would like to know more about the Mobile Market, please visit their page on CAD’s website or email mobilemarket@communityactionduluth.org with questions. For anyone interested in working in the AmeriCorps VISTA program, please click here or email Aly at aly@communityactionduluth.org if you’d like a more personal perspective on the program.