Natalie Pompilio
is a Philadelphia writer
After talking with Common Market cofounders Haile Johnston and Tatiana Garcia-Granados recently, I was struck by the idea of an apple as a "gateway" fruit for inner-city children.
For the last seven years, Garcia-Granados and Johnston's Strawberry Mansion nonprofit has brought healthy, affordable, locally sourced food to people throughout the region, including those living in low-income and neglected communities.
Even children who aren't used to fresh produce are usually willing to at least try an apple. Apples aren't scary to kids. They're also easy for adults to clean and serve.
One bite is often all it takes.
"Food service people at the charter schools we work with tell us the kids will ask for Granny Smiths or Pink Ladies," Garcia-Granados said. "It's all about how delicious the food is. They tell us when they have [imported] apples, those big, red, shiny ones, the kids will take one bite and throw the rest away. They're mealy and flavorless."
While I've written about food deserts before - places where there is no reliable source of fresh - I've only recently fully appreciated the negative long-term effects they have on the children who grow up there. I didn't connect access to fresh food to life expectancy or school performance or economic outcomes.
So a recent project I just finished with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation was an eye-opener. The organization is the nation's largest philanthropy dedicated solely to good health. Good health, the organization maintains, is the foundation for everything else in life.
Now I see the links.
Like the tie between academic success and healthy food. Children who are hungry struggle to pay attention in class and fall behind. Children who fill themselves with unhealthy foods may become obese and miss school because they don't feel well or they don't want to endure abusive peers.
And the connection between a person's education level and life expectancy. That is to say how, on average, a high school dropout will not live as long as a high school graduate; a high school graduate will not live as long as someone who completes a four-year postsecondary school degree.
And how poor health and economic disadvantages go hand-in-hand and how their effects can be passed along through generations. How social determinants of health can be just as crucial as genetics. As Garcia-Granados noted: "It's all interconnected. You pull one string and other things start to unravel."
Common Market is a wholesale distributor, working with local farmers to bring their goods to city schools, hospitals, and other businesses. Common Market has grown steadily since 2008 in terms of both sales and volume. It expects to continue growing by about 30 percent in each of the next few years.
From an economic standpoint, too, that's good for everyone. Studies have shown that every $1 million spent on locally sourced products instead of "ambiguously sourced" goods has an additional $600,000 of regional impact.
"You almost can't ask for a better return," Johnston said.
This year, for the first time, Common Market is duplicating its efforts outside the city. Its Atlanta branch has already begun providing produce grown by African American farmers to public schools.
"We've learned a lot of things and developed systems and best practices in the area of regional food systems and now we have the opportunity to share information so replication can happen," he said. "Everyone can learn from our experiences without having to suffer through our challenges. Transparency is one of our core values. We want to share with good people trying to do good things."
Closer to home, Garcia-Granados and Johnston are raising funds to evaluate a four-year-old program that brings fresh fruits and vegetables to about 50 area businesses for distribution among employees. They've been able to chart the program's growth and increased consumption at each business, but now they want to link that to cost savings for the businesses.
"We're hoping to prove that there are benefits like reduced health-care costs and less absenteeism for the companies that subsidize the access of healthy food for their employees," Johnston said.
Common Market has also just begun working with area hospitals on ways to better align their stated mission - to heal and maintain health - with what's being prepared in cafeterias and sold in vending machines. One large city hospital system told Garcia-Granados that many of its 14,000 employees - mostly hourly support workers - "have worse health than the patient population."
Change will take time, as it always does, the couple said, but they're in it for the long haul. Living in Strawberry Mansion, they've seen how healthy food has changed their neighbors and their neighborhood. Common Market supports a summer farm stand run by Strawberry Mansion High School students. Johnston and Garcia-Granados have seen its customer base grow these last three years.
"There used to be a slow trickle of people coming by," Johnston said. "Now, to see people lining up 20 minutes before they open to have the first pick at the products is incredible."
