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Our newest mobile market needs a name! We give each Fresh Truck vehicle a name that reflects a person, organization or value that is important to us. We need your help to pick the name for truck #4! Below are the names listed with their description. Don’t forget to vote for your favorite! 

Amigo:

This name embodies what Fresh Truck’s mobile markets represent: support, reliability, unity, happiness, and respect. Amigo means friend in Spanish which is a reflection of the diversity of our community of shoppers and partners. Everyone needs a good friend in their life, especially one that brings you all your fresh favorites. 

Ayanna:

Ayanna Pressley is an advocate, policy-maker, activist and survivor. She is a longtime friend of Fresh Truck since her days as a Boston City Councilor. Representing our district as a United States Congresswoman, Ayanna is a champion for the issues that impact Fresh Truck communities. In her Equity Agenda on Health care and Public Health she specifically calls out a need for equitable access to healthy food. 

Mama:

At Fresh Truck we are lucky enough to know a lot of incredible mamas. Sources of strength, support and nurturing these mamas represent so much of what is important in our lives and work. When we think about what this next mobile market will mean to our communities of shoppers we hope to make our mamas proud.

Pam:

Pamela Hoyt is everywhere. She is a tireless advocate and community organizer who has been working with Fresh Truck since we started our stop at Franklin Field Apartments 4 years ago. From managing lines to organizing community events Pam drives positive change in the community. If this next bus has half the energy Pam does we will never have to worry about it being out of commission. You can see Pam featured in our ‘Life with Fresh Truck’ video. 

Piña:

Piña is Spanish for Pineapple. Rough on the outside and sweet on the inside a pineapple is a great metaphor for a mobile market. Throughout history pineapples have also been symbols of friendship, hospitality and welcome. They even come with their own crown. Last year we sold 7,214 pineapples!

In January we said goodbye to Diane, our first ever Mobile Market, and sent her off to a well-deserved retirement. We bought Diane back in 2O13 with funds from a Kickstarter campaign and a generous donation by Building Restoration Services who volunteered their services to do the retrofitting. From there, Fresh Truck launched and started providing fresh food across Boston!

Diane was named in honor of one of our very first shoppers, who lived at the Hearth at Olmsted Green in Dorchester. Diane was a mentor to everyone in her community with her advocacy and knowledge of nutrition and food as medicine. She was an early inspiration to the Fresh Truck as we refined our mission and our programming.

In the five years that Diane (the truck) was on the roads, she ran 2,OOO weekly markets and pop-ups and sold 2OO,OOO bananas. We’re going to miss her around here and wish her a relaxing retirement!

Diane featured our original logo

She got a makeover

Diane occasionally had mechanical issues…

But, she handled everything that Boston’s weather threw at her

Most importantly, she provided fresh fruits and veggies to thousands of satisfied customers!

January 2O19 was a record month for Fresh Truck. We served over 2,5OO shoppers selling over $72,OOO of healthy, affordable food. Sales numbers like this are representative of a lot of factors last month that resulted in households looking to Fresh Truck to help put good food in the fridge and on the table. While high numbers are generally seen as positive, it’s important to look into the reasons why a particularly high number of shoppers took advantage of Fresh Truck in their community. As a social enterprise, we often see external factors make an impact on our programs. January 2O19 was the perfect storm of circumstances that led to an increased need for Fresh Truck’s services.

Winter can be a difficult time for low-income households negotiating expenses for higher heating bills, more  difficult transportation, and warm clothing. This means that more families rely on critical programs like SNAP (Food Stamps), to stretch their budget further and cover these higher costs. Thanks to the Healthy Incentives Program (HIP), Massachusetts SNAP recipients are able to buy extra fresh fruits and veggies from Fresh Truck and farmers’ markets. In the winter, there are very few farmers’ markets in Boston, so Fresh Truck becomes one of the only retailers where shoppers can spend their HIP dollars. Thanks in part to HIP, we have grown our reach more than 2OO% since 2O16 and thousands of low-income households have been able to enjoy fresh, healthy food. After seeing the success of incentive programs like HIP, we are particularly excited about the launch of our internal FreshConnect food prescription program.

This January, the cold weather and HIP were not the only reasons so many people shopped on our trucks. Many shoppers were also affected by the federal government shutdown. As the shutdown continued on for over a month with little sign of a solution, the future of the SNAP program was unclear. Nearly 9O% of Fresh Truck shoppers rely on SNAP, and they had no guarantee they would receive their benefits for the coming months. On top of the uncertainty, due to the shutdown, all SNAP recipients received their February benefits as much as three weeks earlier than usual, requiring them to ration out their benefits over a nearly two-month span.

Over the past month, individuals and organizations alike have faced difficult circumstances and an uncertain future. Fortunately, a network of food access organizations came together to ensure that no one slipped through the cracks. Whether it was Project Bread distributing essential SNAP information to residents, Community Servings providing free meals for federal workers and their families, or the Greater Boston Food Bank providing emergency food for people across the state, organizations have jumped into action to combat challenges during these unprecedented times.

Over the past five years, Fresh Truck has grown and evolved to best serve the needs of our communities. Today, thousands of households count on Fresh Truck as a reliable source of fresh, affordable, healthy food.

As we look back on 2O18, we’re excited to share our first ever Annual Report. Check out what we have been up to this past year, and get a glimpse of what we have in store for 2O19!

Read it now!

We have big plans for the future of food here in Boston, and we’d love to have you on board! Your support helps us reach more families with more fresh, affordable, and nutritious food all year round. We’re grapeful for your support! 🍇

I’ll donate!

Thanksgiving is one of the most meaningful times of the year for many households. It is a time for families, friends, and communities to come together over a hot meal and celebrate each other. At Fresh Truck, we are proud of the role we play as a reliable resource for the fresh, healthy ingredients that will be on the Thanksgiving tables of thousands of Boston families.

Every holiday season our schedule is jam packed with community events and turkey giveaways to get as much fresh food as possible to Bostonians that need it most. Here are the some of the highlights:

• We’re currently wrapping up our four-month long partnership with athenahealth, as part of their “Together We Grow” campaign. By Thanksgiving, we’ll have provided a week’s worth of fresh fruits and veggies to nearly 1,000 families across Massachusetts.
• Yesterday, volunteers from Trip Advisor prepared nearly 500 Thanksgiving meal kits that will be distributed to Boston families thanks to our friends at Camp Harbor View, the Charles Street AME Church, and United Housing.
• That’s all on top of our weekly markets, where we’re expecting to see nearly 3,000 shoppers in the month of November! This month, we’ll sell roughly 4,500 tomatoes, 4,000 apples, 3,000 potatoes and sweet potatoes, and 2,500 yellow and red onions.

This Thanksgiving, Fresh Truck is especially thankful for our hardworking, caring, and empathetic partners across Boston. Whether it comes in the form of a saved parking spot, neighborhood flyers, volunteer hours, or moral support, our partners are always there to support us and we could not do this work without them. They’re the apples of our eye! Who or what are you thankful for this time of year? Let us know in the comments!

Fresh Truck is one of 100 local nonprofits to receive grants of $1OO,OOO each through Cummings Foundation’s “$1OOK for 1OO” program. The Boston-based organization was chosen from a total of 597 applicants, during a competitive review process. Cummings Foundation has announced a total of $2O million in grants to Greater Boston charities in the past two months alone.

This award from the Cummings Foundation will support the growth of our Weekly Market program helping us reach more than 2O Boston area locations by the end of 2O18. “Fresh Truck is honored to have been selected as a grant recipient through Cummings Foundation’s 1OOK for 1OO program,” said Fresh Truck’s Co-Founder and Executive Director, Josh Trautwein. “This grant will directly support the continued growth of our Weekly Market program that provides access to fresh, affordable food to more than 4,OOO Boston households.”

The $1OOK for 1OO program supports nonprofits that are based in and primarily serve Middlesex, Essex, and Suffolk counties. Through this place-based initiative, Cummings Foundation aims to give back in the area where it owns commercial buildings, all of which are managed, at no cost to the Foundation, by its affiliate Cummings Properties. Founded in 197O by Bill Cummings of Winchester, the Woburn-based commercial real estate firm leases and manages 11 million square feet of space, the majority of which exclusively benefits the Foundation.

“We are indebted to the nonprofit organizations like Fresh Truck that have a meaningful positive impact on the local communities where our colleagues and clients live and work,” said Joel Swets, Cummings Foundation’s executive director. “We are delighted to invest in their important programs and services.”

The complete list of 100 grant winners will be available beginning June 7^th at www.CummingsFoundation.org.

About Fresh Truck

We’re on a mission to radically impact community health in Boston by celebrating community food culture and getting fresh food to those who need it most. Fresh Truck operates two renovated school buses as mobile food markets, stocked with fresh fruit, vegetables, and healthy snacks. We partner with health centers and other community organizations to combine their services with access to affordable, healthy food.

What you’ll do

• Support daily mobile market operations: customer service, bus loading/unloading, inventory management, restocking, cleaning
• Create an inviting customer shopping experience through consistent engaging customer service
• Communicate with shoppers, community partners, and co-workers
• Support Fresh Truck initiatives such as community outreach, customer surveys, and operations process improvement

Who you are

• A young person eager to learn about food access and community health in Boston
• Willing to get your hands dirty and comfortable with some heavy lifting
• You embrace working within diverse community settings and with a strong sense of social justice; being multilingual (Spanish, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Cantonese) and/or a Boston native is huge a plus

Benefits

• $11/hour
• Groceries at the end of each shift
• The opportunity to shape Fresh Truck’s growth
• Work day in and day out to make Boston a healthier city

Contact

We’re excited to hear from you! To apply send a resume to Jobs@thefreshtruck.org

On February 12th, 2017, over one-thousand Bostonians walked across Boston to end homelessness. The Winter Walk was a 2-mile walk through the streets of Boston during its coldest month of the year. This first annual Winter Walk included members of many of the City’s organizations addressing the needs of Boston’s homeless community and some of their clients. The funds raised through the Winter Walk will benefit some of Boston’s top organizations working to alleviate suffering and address the root causes that give rise to homelessness.

At the event, Fresh Truck revealed renovation plans to better serve homeless and displaced families and individuals in Boston. We asked for the help from Winter Walk participants to share their ideas for improving food access and hunger relief. We had productive conversations with members of the homeless community here in Boston about their experiences living on the streets and what it takes to transition out of homelessness. They shared their thoughts on how Fresh Truck’s Mobile Market operations can provide nutritous, ready to eat meals to members of their community.

On February 12th, 2017, join over one-thousand Bostonians for a march across Boston to end homelessness. The Winter Walk will benefit some of Boston’s top organizations working to alleviate suffering and address the root causes that give rise to homelessness. Participants include members of many of the City’s organizations addressing the needs of Boston’s homeless community, their clients and people like you.

At the event, Fresh Truck will be revealing a newly donated third truck that has not been renovated into a mobile market. We’re asking for your help on hacking hunger for the homeless with our first Mobile Market Hackathon. At the event, we are going to be crowdsourcing creative ideas on how we can best use this truck to get more nutritious food to Boston’s homeless and displaced families and individuals. Truck 3 will be parked in Copley Square from 8:30-11:00am with post-its and whiteboard markers to collect inspiration from walk participants. Be sure to stop by, see the new truck and contribute your idea.

The Winter Walk is a 2-mile walk through the streets of Boston during its coldest month of the year. This first annual Winter Walk will finish on Copley Plaza where participants will share a meal together and also with members of many of the City’s organizations addressing the needs of Boston’s homeless community and some of their clients, and hear the real stories and struggles of this population. If you’re interested in participating in the walk you can register here.