Eat Well Sioux Falls Mobile Market
Have you heard about how Sioux Falls community members are working together to combat food deserts? The Eat Well Sioux Falls Mobile Market is a grocery store on wheels. This mobile grocery store offers a variety of foods at affordable prices in the Sioux Falls area. The market is available weekly on Tuesdays at four locations. The market accepts most forms of payment, including SNAP benefits.
Megan EisenVos, of IronFox Farm, shares her perspective on how the mobile market is combating food insecurity in Sioux Falls.”We are so excited to see the Mobile Market improving food security in Sioux Falls. With the small space available on the mobile grocery store, you get the staples and healthy items without the distractions you might find in other grocery stores. The Mobile Market accepts SNAP and will hopefully soon accept WIC! People can also purchase gift cards that can be used to help cover people’s grocery payment when needed.”
The initiative goal for the mobile market is to ensure equitable access to regular, reliable, healthy, affordable retail grocery options for low-income, low-access neighborhoods in Sioux Falls. This project has been successful thanks to the help of community organizations, Sioux Falls Thrive, and a grant from the Sioux Falls Health Department to improve healthy food access in identified priority areas in the city. The Sioux Falls Health Department awarded $250,000 to Sioux Falls Thrive to pilot the mobile market. The contract to formally award the grant to Sioux Falls Thrive was approved by the Sioux Falls City Council on May 2, 2023. Read the announcement here.
Thrive began as a cradle-to-career workforce development initiative in 2017 by the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce, Sioux Falls Development Foundation, Sioux Empire United Way, Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation and Forward Sioux Falls. As a volunteer-based organization, Thrive harnesses the power of Collective Impact by bringing existing community resources together to work collaboratively. The goal is to kickstart action-based solutions to the issues that inhibit student success. Thrive facilitates the work of collaborative teams and encourages these community leaders to think innovatively to solve the issues that they are so passionate about. Participating organizations pay none of Thrive’s expenses. Thrive brings together community leadership to remove obstacles to student success and foster opportunity for all children. Thrive uses a Collective Impact Model to tackle three important issues that can stand in the way of success for children across our community: Food Insecurity, Affordable Housing and Out-of-School Time.
For the two-year pilot phase of the Eat Well Sioux Falls Mobile Market, Sioux Falls Thrive will provide traditional backbone organizational services similar to the model used in developing their Kid Link program. Learn more here.