As fall approached and the COVID-19 pandemic kept getting worse, Urban Tilth's waitlist for food aid also continued to grow. After using a loan to buy 2 additional delivery vans, by June we already reached our maximum capacity for home delivery of our fresh fruits and vegetable boxes, but we still had extra food after we completed our veggie box packs each week. Wasting food is a high crime at Urban Tilth, especially when there is so much need, so we decided we had to get this food to more people who need it!
In order to do this, we began setting up a pop-up Free Farm Stand along Fred Jackson Way and Chesley Ave in North Richmond every Tuesday at 2:30pm in June 2020. After realizing that all of our produce was gone by 3:30pm, we added another day, Thursdays at 2:30pm at the same location.
As the gardens on the Greenway boomed and more produce was being produced at our closed school gardens we decided to launch a 3rd FREE Farm Stand along the Richmond Greenway in September 2020 in order to serve families in the Iron Triangle and Santa Fe neighborhoods.
*So far through these FREE Farm Stands we have been able to serve on average 120 additional Richmond families fresh, healthy locally and organically produced fruits and vegetables each week!
