Help Us Bring the ‘Power of Produce’ Nationwide!
By: Jen Cheek Posted On: November 25, 2014
As we approach Thanksgiving, FMC can’t think of the impact our farmers, market managers, and friends have made on strengthening communities without feeling extremely grateful. This year, you have opened the floodgates to an additional demographic eager to lend a voice to our market community – have you noticed? Children! Markets are making an effort to engage their youngest visitors. FMC has been working to bring children’s programming nationwide through the Power of Produce or “POP Club” as we like to call it.
POP Club was developed in Oregon City, and a handful of markets are now offering their own versions of the program, which teaches young patrons the value of their veggies through fun activities and demonstrations, right at their local farmers market. Kids who taste two bites of the featured fruit or veggie each week are entered into the Two Bite Club, and rewarded with $2 to spend at the market. The program engages in kids in the whole market experience—learning about how food is grown, getting excited about healthy eating, and engaging with their local farmers. FMC wants to give markets across the country the opportunity to start their own POP Club, but we need your help. 
We’ve rebranded POP, with the help of the team at Good Three Design, and created templates and guides to help markets implement their own POP Club. We have a little more work to do to streamline the core offerings, package it in an easy to distribute, ready-to-go program for any market wanting to offer the program. We hope to offer these resources in combination with a stipend to help markets pay for the materials and staffing required to make POP success. Unfortunately, we don’t yet have the funds to distribute POP Club nationwide. Which is why our end of the year fundraising will be dedicated to POP! Please consider a contribution of any amount to help us reach our $10,000 goal. Contributions of all sizes are tax-deductible and will be used solely to bring the excitement of market freshness to our youth. You have the Power of Produce within you. You know what meeting a farmer, tasting a crisp fresh picked vegetable or produce can do to a person – help share the experience! Click here to make a donation:
POP Club is made possible by the Patricia Miller Memorial Fund, created in memory of FMC Program Advisor, Stacy Miller’s, mother. We would like to thank the FMC Board of Director’s for starting this memorial in honor of Patricia, who was always a supporter of FMC and often a cheerful presence during FMC meetings caring for her grandson Fionn.
In Stacy’s words, “My mom taught me as a young child on the pleasures of picking boatloads of berries when they were at their peak, and she couldn’t wait to share those same joys with her new grandson. On a sweltering South Carolina day last summer, when Fionn was not even a year old, we went blueberry picking on a farm near her house, sweating our way from bush to bush, ‘picking them clean’, as she would say. As a grandmother, I know that encouraging a healthy future for all children was important to her, and I know she would be as honored and grateful as I am to know that this fund is being established in her name for kids everywhere to learn how fun it is to eat fresh.”
Please tell friends or family about the super powers of POP and how they can help too. Tweet, post on facebook or Instagram using the hashtags #PowerOfProduce or #Ihavethepowerofproduce to help us reach our goal. Together we will give children the power to ignore candy disguised as “snacks” and see more of this:
