On Tuesday, October 5th, the City of Wilmington awarded Feast Down East $75,000 to help our organization further address food insecurity in our community. Specifically, this donation allows us to hire a full-time Mobile Market Coordinator to do more outreach, and to bring more fresh foods to communities that lack access. This money will also help cover costs associated with running the Local Motive Mobile Farmers’ Market. 

We are grateful that the city is helping us solve the issue of food insecurity, and of course to the other community organizations - the Northside Food Co-Op and the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina - who perform equally important work and help support us in this mission.

We are excited to grow our Mobile Market in the years to come! Read more and watch the full press conference below.

If you see Kaiyon or Nathaniel at one of our Local Motive Mobile Farmers' Market sites, please be sure to give them a warm welcome!

Feast Down East has recently joined the Harrelson Center! Our new office space will allow us to host staff meetings as well as work with other nonprofits in the area. We are excited for this new venture!

You can help us move in by purchasing items from our Amazon wishlist below. Thank you for your help!

Thanks to previous fundraising efforts, we were recently able to install a new refrigeration cooling unit on our box truck! This will allow us to continue transporting produce to the Wilmington market for years to come. Thank you to everyone who donated!

October is the bulk of the fall harvest. Produce variety has dwindled over the past month (this is normal), but our farmers have transplants in the ground and for now, a favorable weather forecast for growing in the near future.

 

This week, we were able to move $4,733.70 worth of products for local farmers. It's been a fairly steady rise from mid-September to now as variety has increased. 

 

 

We have been working closely with getting AM Family Farm into the market vegetable business. They already have a successful blackberry farm and are researching ways to grow and market produce. Most of their produce will be sold at the Mobile Market.

The Local Motive Mobile Farmers’ Market has had a busy few months. Check out our numbers from September:

- 213 market visits

- Total of 21 markets at 10 community partner sites

- 52.7% of sales using SNAP/EBT food stamps with Fresh Bucks matching

- 81 food prescription vouchers processed totaling $455.56

Curious to know some all-time Local Motive statistics? (These numbers have already increased!)

On Thursday, October 7th we held a fundraiser pop-up market at Hi-Wire Brewing in Downtown Wilmington. This market had regular and donation pricing. Hi-Wire also hosted a pint night for us where $1 from every flagship beer sold was donated directly to FDE. Thank you to everyone who joined us! 

The Local Motive Mobile Farmers’ Market is a great place to volunteer and spend time within your community. We’re currently looking for produce handlers and survey/data collectors. Sign up for a position below.

Our Emerging Farmers Program is on pause right now.

 

Continue to monitor our website, or follow us on social media, for info on our next class.

 

 

 

 

Left photo: Large box. Right photo: Small box.

Homegrown Grassroot Goods, a low-waste grocery store located in the Cargo District in Downtown Wilmington, now accepts SNAP/EBT!

The grocery store, located at 615 S. 15th St., is located in an area where the surrounding community relies on food stamps. Thank you to Homegrown for helping serve the food deserts in Downtown Wilmington.

Visit their website here.