Store clerk Sumner Grey waits on customers and Sandra Ratliff, left, and Shirley Pittman shop in the Mobile Market at the Emma Wheeler Homes on Tuesday. The market operates Monday through Friday in neighborhoods that are underserved by grocery stores.
Store clerk Sumner Grey sweeps leaves and acorns away from the door as he opens the Mobile Market at the Emma Wheeler Homes, where it is open to customers from 10 a.m. until noon every Tuesday. The market operates Monday through Friday in neighborhoods that are underserved by grocery stores.Read moreLocally grown food initiative ends in Chattanooga
ONLINEThe schedule and locations for the Mobile Market may also be found at chattanoogamobilemarket.org.
SPONSORS AND PARTNERSFounding partners and funders for the Mobile Market include Gaining Ground, the YMCA, Chattanooga Area Food Bank, Grow Healthy Together Chattanooga, Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities and the Hamilton County Health Department Step 1 initiative.The Benwood Foundation’s Gaining Ground initiative will end at the end of this year, but its three-year funding commitment to the Mobile Market had already been appropriated.Mobile Market schedule and locationsMONDAYPatten Towers, 1 E. 11th St., 10 a.m. to noonTUESDAYEmma Wheeler Homes, 4900 Edinburg Drive #A, 10 a.m. to noonEastlake Park, 3000 East 34th St., 1 to 3 p.m.New City Fellowship Church, 4 to 6 p.m.WEDNESDAYMary Walker Towers, South Market Street., 10 a.m. to noonCollege Hill Courts, Grove Street, 1 to 3 p.m.The Bethlehem Center, 200 W. 38th St., 4 to 6 p.m.THURSDAYGateway Towers, 1100 Gateway Ave., 10 a.m. to noonAvondale Recreation Center, 1305 Dodson Ave., 1 to 3 p.m.Cromwell Hills Apartments, 3940 Camellia Drive, 4 to 6 p.m.SATURDAYEastdale Food Lion, 3200 block of Wilcox Boulevard, 10 to 11:30 a.m.Orchard Knob Elementary School, 400 N. Orchard Knob Ave., 12 to 1:30 p.m.Glass Street at North Chamberlain, 2523 Glass St., 2 to 3:30 p.m.
More than 62,000 people in Chattanooga live in food deserts, yet in some neighborhoods as few as five people take advantage of a grocery store on wheels that comes to them once a week.
Even areas with the greatest usage of the Mobile Market see only 12 to 15 customers, said Sumner Gray, mobile market manager.