Get your farm fresh local produce on Tuesdays in Lawrence

Cornell Cooperative Extension of Nassau County and the Nassau County Office for the Aging collaborated to set up a mobile farmer’s market at the Five Towns Community Center in Lawrence that will be available every Tuesday through October.

The purpose of the mobile farmer’s market is “to provide the community with consistent access to fresh, high-quality, affordable produce,” CCE’s Supervising Community Nutrition Educator Nicole Borukhov wrote in an email, “With this program, we are addressing lack of access and food insecurity while supporting local farmers on Long Island.”

Starting on June 21, the markets are open at varying locations across Long Island, selling produce grown at the CCE-Nassau Dorothy P. Flint 4H Camp farm in Riverhead and other farms. 

In the Five Towns, the markets will be at the Grant Park Administrative Building in Hewlett, 1625 Broadway, from 10:30 a.m. to noon, and at the Five Towns Community Center, 270 Lawrence Avenue, from 1 to 2:30 p.m.

This year, Community Center Executive Director K. Brent Hill contacted CCE-Nassau “and they offered the services,” Hill said. “We gladly accepted and we decided to make this resource available for the community.”

CCE-Nassau also received funding from the Veggie Van Training Center — an organization which helps start, expand, and improve mobile produce market programs — to offer a Senior Mobile Market Loyalty Program. This program for seniors enables income-eligible participants 50 and older to receive $5 to spend at CCE-Nassau mobile markets every week. 

The CCE-Nassau markets accept cash, credit/debit, and SNAP/EBT in addition to incentive programs like the Farmers Market Nutrition Program for seniors and WIC participants and FreshConnect checks, which are available to SNAP recipients and veterans. 

For additional information about those programs, visit shorturl.at/ruvNY and shorturl.at/cklES.