Community Partnership to deliver fresh produce, meat to food deserts
PARKER — A bus that once helped people with disabilities get around is being retrofitted to help people have fresh food.
The Produce Cart, when it’s unveiled later this summer by the Community Partnership Inc. of Butler, will deliver fresh produce and meats from county farms to people who have difficulty accessing those foods.
Community Partnership staff is in the process of converting a used bus it bought from the county for $4,500 in April after it was removed from service from Butler Area Rural Transit for use as the Produce Cart.
Project manager Nick Leturgey said he likes the Produce Cart name so much he wanted to protect it through a patent or copyright. His idea didn’t go far due the cost and time of those legal processes, but the project is underway.
Community Partnership received a $40,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Fresh Food Financing Initiative Fund Trust of Philadelphia to buy and renovate the bus so it can be used to deliver fresh products from local farms to three places — including Butler City — that are considered food deserts because many residents don’t own vehicles and don’t have access to fresh food, Leturgey said. New Castle and Aliquippa are the two other stops for the Produce Cart.
“Our goal is to sell the freshest food possible,” Leturgey said.
The retrofitting work should be finished in June, but the bus can’t be used to deliver food until it passes an inspection from the state Department of Agriculture. Early July is the soonest the inspection can take place, he said.
Leturgey and other staff have removed the old interior of the bus and are in the process of installing electrical wiring that sends power from an outboard mounted generator to two small refrigerators to keep food cold, a water heater for making coffee and tea and lighting.
The interior will include shelving for produce bins and a sink. One of the side windows will be used as an awning over a window where a shelf containing produce will be located, he said.
The exterior, which is currently painted white, will be much more colorful when it hits the road. Staff members will hand-paint a mural of the Produce Cart sitting in a farm field on one side, and the cart parking in a city scene on the other side. Businesses or organizations wishing to sponsor the cart will have their decals placed on the rear of the bus.
Community Partnership is looking to hire a market manager who will load and drive the bus and sell the products, and is hoping to obtain a grant to hire a nutrition specialist who would demonstrate various ways to cook the products and talk to people about nutrition at the cart stops.
The cart would travel three days a week, and spend one day from noon to 6 p.m. at each location. The places where the cart will park haven’t been determined, Leturgey said.
On Fridays, any unsold products will be sold at a store the organization will open in a classroom at the former Bruin Elementary School. Community Partnership is renting the room from the Nonprofit Development Corp. of Butler, which owns the building.
Community Partnership plans to meet with farmers about buying seasonal produce as well as meat and dairy products from them for the cart.
The original plan called for the organization to hire a contractor to renovate the bus, but the contractor’s prices increased due to the COVID-19 pandemic so staff took on the project, Leturgey said. The money saved by doing the work in-house will be spent buying food from farmers, he added.
Although the cart won’t start rolling until later in the summer, it will hopefully be successful enough to keep farmers interested in participating next year and possibly plant more produce, he said.
