City Heights Farmer's Market

In San Diego, there is a vibrant community called City Heights that is home to refugees from countries all over the world. The Karen of Burma, Sudanese, Vietnamese, and Ethiopians, just to name a few. It is a wonderful place, and walking through the streets is like taking a whirlwind tour of the globe. Unfortunately, there is a lot of poverty in this area, and a lot of need as people are relocated from refugee and IDP camps in war-torn countries and placed in sunny suburban San Diego.

As a community, we've been interested in getting to know the people who live there in the hopes that we can show hospitality toward these new neighbors and offer support to them should the need arise. For me, this stems from the instances of hospitality I've experienced around the world and a desire to reciprocate those, as well as clear command from God throughout the Bible to show hospitality and given aid to "aliens." In these ventures into the neighborhood, I've personally become enamored with the AjA Project (for which I now volunteer), Red Sea Ethiopian restaurant, and the City Heights farmer's market.

I've recently met a guy named Colin who helps organize the weekly farmer's market, we both go to Hawthorn House on Sunday nights. I was excited to find out that he's very connected to the non-profit world in City Heights. I've been able to learn a lot more about this particular market, and wanted to share a bit of its story.

The market is brand new and still growing, but it has been designed so that those who are on food stamps and other government assistance programs can use those benefits to purchase fresh produce from the market. In addition, they've established something called the "fresh fund," which gives an additional $5 worth of free produce to each family. There are a number of great community organizations who've set up booths there in the past, as well as demonstrations about healthy eating and other unique programs. This is a market with a great vision and a great story.

I've felt very excited about supporting this project, and am going to be extending my support from weekly patronage to assisting with some marketing and fundraising to help finance the fresh fund. I met with Colin last week, and will be attending a couple of other meetings in the future with the board that helps organize the market. I'm not sure what that will look like just yet, but one idea that we both seem to like is a recipe book.

This book will include stories about the lives of the market patrons, recipes from their home countries, and lots of pictures. This would be a personal project, but a large percentage of the profits would be donated to the market.

I'll continue to post about what that process might look like, while leaving you with the following colorful goodness:

Update on the Chocolate Project: Bake it Forward

Though I've been far less dutiful in posting updates that I'd hoped, I did think it was important to share this website that we put together to start sharing the story about the human slavery that pervades the chocolate industry.

We challenge you to educate yourself, and then put together a few plates of cookies for your friends and neighbors, attach the card from the website, and challenge them to "bake it forward."