Steve McCrossan, Executive Director
As you may know, the Everybody’s IGA grocery store, a church, and several businesses on Greenfield St. were recently destroyed in a fire. Since then, there have been lots of questions about this neighborhood becoming a food desert, what the future holds for the destroyed plaza, and a lot of “what can we do?”
Several ideas have been floating around but many will take years to come to fruition, if at all, and then there is the question of what to do in the meantime? The main questions behind any short-term idea have been who will own it-literally and figuratively, and will it be sustainable. It’s also important to remember that Greenfield Street area residents lost more than just a grocery store. They lost a place of worship, a breakfast spot, and several businesses-they lost part of their community.
Let me be clear, finding solutions to the void left by the fire is not NourishNC’s mission. We exist to feed kids-period. While this may not be our mission, Greenfield St. is our neighborhood and NourishNC feels obligated to act.
NourishNC doesn’t have all the answers but we want to do something to propel the conversation towards action. The NourishNC Board of Directors recently designated funding for us to act. On June 23rd we are joining forces with Support the Port and hosting the Greenfield St. Pop-Up Farmers Market from 10-1 outside at the Old Century Mills building on the corner of 8th and Greenfield St. A big thanks to Molly McDonough and Tribute Companies for making this property available for the pop-up market. Tribute has always been a generous supporter of NourishNC and other local nonprofits.
This event is completely free and intended for folks from the Greenfield neighborhood. NourishNC will provide a free Farmers Market with thousands of pounds of farm fresh produce. Folks of all ages will get “Nourish Bucks” to “shop” for fresh fruits & veggies. We want this to be more of a community experience rather than just a pop-up market. The event will have a DJ, free hot breakfast, health related activities, kid’s activities, action-oriented resources, etc. We also want it to be an opportunity where folks from the neighborhood can give feedback about what they need in their neighborhood.
NourishNC is working with our community partners to lock in all the good stuff for this event and will post Part 2 of this blog with more details soon. Want to support this project? We need a 40×40 rental tent, 2 port a johns, a bounce house, 500 water bottles with ice and coolers, and an organization to prepare and serve breakfast for several hundred people. You can also donate at https://nourishnc.org/donate/ or contact Steve at director@nourishnc.org.
“No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.” What will you do?
Update: We have all the supplies and volunteers we need! Wilmington is a great and caring community.
