Maps' Story
"Local food is important to make our community safer and less vulnerable to a changing world."
It started with neighbors. In 1992, a group of West Side residents looked at the vacant lots around them and saw soil instead of blight. What began as a neighborhood effort became the Massachusetts Avenue Project. What began as empty land became an urban farm that now grows food in the middle of the city, feeding the very blocks it sits on.
But growing good food isn't enough if people can't get to it. That's why MAP put a farm stand on wheels. From June through October, the MAP Mobile Market travels to neighborhoods across Buffalo where fresh produce is hard to find. The truck carries fruits and vegetables from MAP's own urban farm and from partner farms within 100 miles. Rain or shine, the food comes to you.
Getting there is only half of access. Affording it is the other half. The Mobile Market accepts SNAP/EBT, Double Up Food Bucks NY, FreshConnect coupons, and Farmers' Market Nutrition Program checks for seniors and WIC families, alongside MAP's own Harvest Savings Program.
Beyond the mobile market. MAP's community kitchen hosts culinary classes where neighborhood teens cook with produce grown steps away, then sit down and share the meal together. The year-round Farmhouse Market keeps local food flowing through the winter. Advocacy work pushes for a food system that serves everyone. Taken together, it's one idea expressed a dozen ways: local food is for all of us.
Find the Mobile Market in your neighborhood, or visit the Farmhouse Market year-round on Thursdays.
