project leader
Jonathan L
location
Throughout the Miami Community, Various locations
(Various locations throughout the Miami Community)
latest update rss
No updates yet.

the project

Ke’Ara has created a Farmers’ Market on Wheels providing access to local, sustainable, and organic goods throughout Miami-Dade to eaters like you. We offer the freshest local produce from farms located throughout the state, the finest locally produced specialty food items, and eco-friendly/holistic goods and products. The Mobile Harvest Market will have a regular weekly schedule, reaching multiple neighborhoods each day and targeting communities that are most underserved in terms of food access. This concept is based on a proven model that has been very successful and impactful in other major cities. Ke’Ara will foster community engagement and establish strong working partnerships with key stakeholders including health centers, schools, and other community-based organizations to maximize our outreach. Ke’Ara is able to add to the capacity of existing community health programs and school curriculum by utilizing the Mobile Harvest Market as a platform to educate youth and families around healthy eating, meal preparation and urban agriculture. Ke’Ara Mobile Harvest Market will allow local farmers and producers to sell their goods as soon as they are harvested so you can enjoy them as fresh as possible while also creating another outlet for selling their products thus providing a consistent market for the food system. The market will also provide access to those that don't have transportation, time, or knowledge to acquire healthy, local, sustainable, organic goods.

the steps

The Ke’Ara Mobile Harvest Market has been in Research and Development for the last couple of years including surveying the community on food access and the viability of our project model. So far, we have been fortunate to have the initial support of a great team of people and several organizations, such as Earth Learning, a local nonprofit. We are very excited because Earth Learning will be assisting our project by incubating and finalizing the development of our “Food Caboose”: a state-of-the-art trailer retrofitted to showcase our selection of produce, specialty and artisan foods, bulk foods items for cooking and baking, herbs and spices, grains, seeds, coffee, teas, dried fruits, and legumes. We are almost fully prepared to launch this venture and need your support to take the next step to become operational. We are looking for the assistance of ioby to help us purchase the rest of our Van, which we have already identified, to help get us rolling on the road. Along with the Van, our project requires equipment and installation of all retrofitting needed to have a licensed Mobile Food Dispensing Vehicle (MFDV) in the State of Florida. This will allow us to merchandise and service the Ke’Ara Mobile Harvest Market with deli items, snacks, beverages, to-go pre-packaged foods and pre-made meals showcasing locally available items of the season with recipes by some of the greatest local chefs. Once the fabrication has been completed and licensed we will introduce the beta stage of our local food tour.

why we're doing it

“Ke’Ara” comes from the indigenous words meaning People (Ara) of the Earth (Ke’). At Ke’Ara Food Collective we believe that through a collective process we can accomplish great things by focusing on sustainability, biodiversity, conservation, food security and health. Our desire is to help in protecting the earth and assist towards developing our own truly resilient community in Miami-Dade through all facets revolving around our food system. When measuring sustainability in our community, we’ve found that one of the most underserved areas is its diverse relationship it has with the food we grow, buy, and eat. There is substantial research indicating that the local food movement has a high success rate in foods that are minimally processed, in season and locally grown, like those available at farmers’ markets and backyard gardens. The processes to grow these foods are generally the most earth- and climate-friendly. One of the reasons is because the energy needed to store and transport the food is removed from the equation with less harmful greenhouse gasses being emitted into the atmosphere. Why import avocados from Mexico when they grow in our own “backyard”? We are confident that our project will also begin to tackle food security issues for those without access to healthy, fresh food by providing an expandable market for farmers and producers, convenience for those that don’t have the time to seek them out, and distribution for those without transportation. Ke’Ara Mobile Harvest Market has been designed to find solutions for all of these problems.

budget

 

Complete the Van Purchase $5,000
Modifications, Fabrication, Body & Paint, and Retrofit $3,000
Refrigerated Merchandising Deli Display Unit $4,500
Triple & Hand Sink Set with Water system $1,500
 


SUBTOTAL = $14,000
ioby Platform Fee  $35
ioby Fiscal Sponsorship Fee (5%) $700
3rd Party Credit Card Processing Fee (3%) $420
TOTAL TO RAISE = $15,155


RAISED = $1,111.00
less ioby Platform Fee  $35.00
less ioby Fiscal Sponsorship Fee (5%) $51.24
less 3rd Party Credit Card Processing Fee (3%) $31.34
TOTAL TO DISBURSE = $993.42

 

updates

Sorry, but this project doesn't have any updates yet.

photos

This is where photos will go once we build flickr integration

donors

  • Ellee V.
  • Ellee V.
  • Ellee V.
  • Ellee V.
  • Jessica K.
  • Levi B.
  • Eric N.
  • Oscar C.
  • Diego A.
  • Jessica K.
  • Jacob P.