4 More Weeks of Indy Winter Farmers Market

Only 4 more weeks remaining in the Indy Winter Farmers Market season! Be sure to join us to celebrate the last four weeks of the wonderful collection of IWFM growers and producers all in one place, as well as our last four weeks in the fabulous Maxwell location. We know that April is a busy month, with lots of events and the excitement of warmer weather and things to be done outside. Please know how deeply the IWFM staff, vendors and volunteers appreciate your continued commitment to the great local products we work hard to make available, and your continued presence at the IWFM throughout the month of April. Don't stop now!

Many, many thanks to those who took our flyer, donated for a raffle ticket, button t-shirt, or just to support the IWFM and Wishard Health Services vision for making the good food offered at the IWFM available to individuals who don't have adequate access. Just this week the IWFM received approval from the USDA Food & Nutrition Service to accept Electronic Benefits Transfer through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) beginning in November 2011. This is a huge win! Additionally, we are working with Wishard Health Services to implement other methods for bringing good food to more people and more people to good food.

Your support of these programs is critical to their success. Please help us meet our goal of raising $5,000 in the month of April to support this new programming. We know that creating meaningful change in our community is a collective effort. It requires individuals, institutions, policy makers - all as part of the same community - to be willing to step up in whatever way they can to individually contribute to a collective effort for change.

I'm writing from Los Angeles this week, where I am meeting and learning from individuals, institutions and policy makers who are working to create lasting, positive change in the lives of individuals in order to do the same in communities. One of the many amazing people I've met so far, said the question we must ask is "How are the children?" If the answer is not that they are healthy, happy, and well, then we are not doing the work that needs to be done. When one in three children in Indiana is overweight or obese, when diabetes is epidemic, when children are malnourished AND obese, when children cannot achieve their potential because they are hungry and undernourished, when the answer to the question is "Not okay" - then WE know WE have a lot of work to do. There is no WE without each and every one of us, and together we can create meaningful change.