CSA made EZ

By now everyone is familiar with community-supported agriculture, where a group of people "subscribe" to a given farmer or set of farmers for a given season, paying up front and reaping the varied produce benefits. St. Christopher's Foundation for Children recently launched a program that modifies this model to help low-income families in North Philadelphia.

Farm to Families, as the foundation's release explains,  "re-imagines the inner city food landscape, bridging local farms and more than a dozen North Philadelphia neighborhoods while addressing the financial challenges of sustainable healthy eating ... with $5, $10 and $15 weekly food shares."

This is an interesting experiment that we'd be interested to see other Philly communities take on. Right now this one is serving  families that "live, work or worship in North Philadelphia." Here's how it works:

Weekly food shares are available in $5, $10 and $15 packages.  The $5 box is brimming with fresh fruits and vegetables, from apples and blueberries and cantaloupe, to romaine lettuce, tomatoes, white potatoes, carrots, ears of corn, string beans, zucchini and cucumbers, in season.  The $10 and $15 shares offer larger volumes of the same great seasonal produce, plus one dozen eggs and one pound of poultry.

Rather than requiring up-front payment as CSAs do, Farm to Families operates on a week-to-week basis, spreading out costs and offering greater purchasing flexibility.  Participants simply order and pay for a food share one week ahead of time, in-person at an established drop-off location.  Food shares are sold at wholesale cost, and SNAP benefits – formerly called food stamps – are accepted. 

And unlike CSAs and farmers' markets that are limited by growing seasons, Farm to Families offers fresh food shares year-round, including in the long winter months.

Jan Shaeffer, St. Christopher's executive director, explained that the impetus was to get food to families in need - but not just feed them today and let them scrounge for potato chips tomorrow:

"When we started talking about this," she told me, "there was this talk of, why not just do a food drive? But that only looks at part of the problem. Families are striving to feed healthy meals to their kids but at the same time, they're struggling to get food on the table."

Shaeffer acknowledges that because of this latter dynamic there's a natural impulse toward a quick fix: "Sure," she says, "the instinct is to just give food, but we all need a way to consistently feed ourselves and sustain ourselves. This program is focused on families having the opportunity to eat things that will sustain them."

Let's hope Farm to Families is sustained itself, to better nourish the bodies and the larger communities it serves.