Park City Harvest Farm Stand locations in Bridgeport have reopened for the season and Wholesome Wave’s Double Value Coupon Program for SNAP/EBT and WIC recipients is once again being offered. Under this program, $10 in benefits equals $20 in fresh, CT-grown,  fruits and vegetables! The markets also accept seniors farmers market checks and cash.

Summer 2010 locations open through September:

• Tuesdays, 12:00 – 5:00: St. Vincent’s Medical Center, 2800 Main Street
• Wednesdays, 9:30 – 2:00: Bridgeport Health Department, 752 East Main Street

Park City Harvest is a project of Wholesome Wave  and the Healthy Bridgeport Alliance.

Michel Nischan is a James Beard awarding-winning chef, cookbook author, restauranteur and founder and CEO of Wholesome Wave. Michel currently writes a regular monthly column for the Atlantic.

Video: Watch Wholesome Wave’s founder and CEO, Michel Nischan, interviewed on  the “Making a Difference” segment of the NBC Nightly News with Brian William. In it, NBC’s John Yang visits with Michel at farmers’ markets and his family’s backyard garden to discuss the incredibly positive impact Wholesome Wave’s Double Value Coupon Program is having around the country as it provides inner city neighborhoods with access to fresh, healthy and affordable locally grown food.

For more information about Wholesome Wave’s Nourishing Neighborhoods programs, visit www.wholesomewave.org.

Read more about local food hero Michel Nischan in his profile in Who’s Who in Sustainable Food CT.

Park City Harvest, a project of the Wholesome Wave Foundation and the Healthy Bridgeport Alliance, is bringing healthy, farm-fresh food to the Bridgeport community.

As one of Wholesome Wave Foundation’s core programs under the “Nourishing Neighborhoods” campaign umbrella,  created by chef and sustainable food advocate Michel Nischan and Wholesome Wave Chairman Gus Schumacher, the Neighborhood Farm Stand Program brings farm stands deep within neighborhoods of underserved Bridgeport, Connecticut communities three days a week. The Park City Harvest farm stand pilot program, supported by the Double Value Coupon Program, sells healthy, locally grown produce from Connecticut farmers. Consumers have three locations to choose from:

• Wed. – Bridgeport Health Department, 752 East Main Street, 10-7
• Thurs. -Marina Village, Columbia Street and Ridge Avenue, 10-3
• Fri. – St. Vincent’s Medical Center, 2800 Main Street, 10-7

This “Nourishing Neighborhoods” program is a five-fold stimulus to:

1. create fresh produce availability in “food deserts”
2. develop local jobs to manage neighborhood “market” stands
3. improve well-being by offering healthier food choices to vulnerable families
4. provide income support to the farmers selling in these neighborhoods
5. serve as a solid investment in reducing future health care costs by decreasing the growing diabetes and obesity problem.

Market Box Nutrition Program

Launched at the Norwalk Community Health Center (NCHC) as another one of Wholesome Wave Foundation’s “Nourishing Neighborhoods” core programs, the Market Box Nutrition Program purchases surplus fruits and vegetables from the Westport farmers’ market, pack the produce into half-bushel boxes, then deliver the boxes at an affordable and subsidized cost to families that have little access to fresh food. Each box, a $20-25 value, may be purchased for $6 in Food Stamps or Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Farmers Market Nutrition vouchers. The program benefits families that want to purchase fresh, locally grown produce but do not have access to transportation or the economic means to shop at farmers’ markets.