Adding a New Sponsor, Growing our Community

Grow well. Eat well. Live well. This is the motto of the Indy Winter Farmers Market (IWFM). We believe it represents a full-circle vision for food systems and community health. We must grow our food well, in ways that nurture farmland ecology and all who eat from it. We must eat well, choosing foods and eating habits that will nourish our bodies and minds, as well as inspire pleasure in the experience of eating healthy, whole foods. We must live well, enjoying quality of life and making lifestyle choices that respect each other, our communities, the environment, and ourselves.

We are pleased to announce a new partner in this vision, Wishard Health Services. Wishard believes that these three elements are critical contributors to helping people be well. When we have access to food that is grown well; when we have the information and resources to eat well; when we are empowered within our community to live well; then we greatly enhance our capacity to be well.

Wishard Health Services is partnering with the IWFM to sponsor a new food access program that will make the good food available at the IWFM accessible to a broader scope of the central Indianapolis population. Wishard is a core provider of service and care to our community’s most vulnerable, and it has long supported food access and community health. Providing healthful food options is an integral part of the community’s health and the Wishard model of care. Nutrition is a serious challenge for many in the urban population, and Wishard is proud to serve as an advocate and resource for advancing awareness and adoption of healthy lifestyles and food choices to support improved health outcomes.

We are deeply grateful to Wishard Health Services for their sponsorship, which provides the seed to make it happen. However, as we all know, it takes more than seeds to grow a successful garden.

Together Wishard Health Services and the IWFM are issuing a challenge to the community to help raise the funds to make this program a success. Our goal is to raise a minimum of $5,000 in the month of April to contribute to the development, implementation and on-going operations of this new program. If each person who visits the market gave only $1 per visit, we could easily exceed this minimum goal in one month. We will have t-shirts, buttons and fantastic raffle prizes each week in April, to make giving more fun! Be the first to sport our fantastically updated logo. Read more below.

We hope you will help us meet this goal. It takes the commitment of a community to ensure everyone has the opportunity to: Grow well. Eat well. Live well. & Be well.