I’ve been working on my practicum since May. As I described in my initial post, May and June were filled with lots of logistical issues to tackle regarding food safety, scheduling, and selecting recipes.

We started attending the markets in late June, and had several “kick-off” events that we completed with key members of the community. We were lucky enough to work with the Mayor’s office to coordinate a joint kick-off event with the Mayor, the Department of Agriculture, WIC, and the Department of Transitional Assistance. The photo below is from the South Station farmers market in downtown Boston, and shows my coworker and I with Mayor Menino doing a food demo for “veggie salsa”. Here is a link to the news write-up about it on UMass Extension’s website! – http://www.umassextension.org/index.php/component/content/article/49/703-mayor-menino

For 6 weeks, we did awesome food demos at the markets. We provided samples for people which were prepared in a licensed kitchen ahead of time and kept under mechanical refrigeration, and provided copies of the recipe for people to take home. People were very receptive to this, and we ended up giving out between 60 and 112 samples & recipes at each market (we stayed 2-4 hours at each and 112 was the max our fridge held).

However, at the 6 week mark, our fridges started to fail and weren’t maintaining proper temperature. We have since been working with Inspectional Services on a new plan. Unfortunately, it has been really tough to find models that do keep temperature outside on hot summer days that are also light enough for staff to carry and small enough to fit in our cars.

We are still working to come up with a solution to this issue. However, in the meantime, we have been giving out healthy recipes which I selected from UMass Extension’s website (check out the recipe database here – http://www.umassextension.org/nutrition/index.php/publications/recipes/recipes), as well as handouts on nutrition education.

I’ve currently been working on developing/conducting evaluation, and will hopefully have some good information to share soon!