Mpls celebrates local food program

The folks who helped bring urban bees and mini-farmers markets to Minneapolis are holding a community celebration Monday night.

The city-run initiative, called Homegrown Minneapolis, has been around since 2008 - relying in part on funding from the Statewide Health Improvement Program.

Since then, they've helped set up mini-farmers markets in low-income neighborhoods, organized an effort to increase healthy food options in corner stores, opened up city lots for community gardens, taught residents the basics of food canning, and helped create a system for food support recipients to use EBT cards at farmers markets.

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Photo: Sandy Miller checks the progress of her produce on June 13, 2011. Miller is part of a community garden program in her Minneapolis neighborhood. "Eventually," says Miller, "we'll add raspberries and other things we can share with people in the community." (MPR Photo/Nikki Tundel)

"We're linking arm in arm with folks in the community to really figure out what can we do to have a more sustainable healthy local food system," said Homegrown Minneapolis coordinator June Mathiowetz.

The event starts at 4:45 p.m. at the University Research and Outreach Center at 2001 Plymouth Ave. N. Residents will also get a chance to share their suggestions for improving access to healthy local food. More information on Homegrown Minneapolis is available here.

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