The Allen Neighborhood Center (ANC) is wrapping up an ambitious multi-million dollar creation: Allen Place, a new mixed-use community space featuring mixed-income apartments, a federally qualified health clinic, and a food co-op partnering with local farmers. Public Policy Associates (PPA) is pleased to partner with ANC in making their food- and health-related programming more integrated, expansive, and sustainable.
“We look forward to integrating a lot of our current services and programs…integrating new neighbors—both commercial and residential—into the program life of the Allen Neighborhood Center,” says Joan Nelson, executive director of the ANC.
Objectives for this stage of the project, which are funded by a USDA Farmers Market and Local Food Promotion Program grant, include:
- Relocate the outdoor Farmers Market to a new site to accommodate 20 local food vendors.
- Engage new commercial neighbors and Accelerator Kitchen food businesses in collaborative marketing, promotion, and programming to draw new patrons to the market.
- Increase access to the market by maximizing and leveraging non-automobile transit options—including the use of pedicabs.
- Provide training and commercial kitchen access to farmers interested in value-added processing as well as other business development skill-building.
PPA was selected as the program evaluation team to design the methodology and report on progress and outcomes. PPA is charged with supporting the development of evaluation tools, gathering feedback from stakeholder groups, analysis of administrative and primary data, and identification of lessons learned.
For more information about Public Policy Associates and our work in healthy communities policy, please contact Nancy McCrohan at nmccrohan@publicpolicy.com.