Due to the overwhelming response from the “Sponsor a Senior for the Holiday” program, we will launch “Sponsor A Senior Throughout the Year.” The program dates are March 5 – December 31, 2012. For a donation of $100.00, each senior will receive one bag filled with fresh fruits and vegetables monthly, information on eating and staying healthy, and a minimum of 3 food demonstrations and nutrition education/wellness classes. You are invited to join us monthly and meet the senior or seniors your are sponsoring. Please consider sponsoring several senior citizens for the program in GFMP’s 30 locations throughout the Greater Phoenix area. Your gift is fully tax deductible. Just click the donate button.
To date, seniors have been provided with fresh fruits and vegetables for the holidays in 8 of our 30 locations. The seniors and the GFMP team are very appreciative for the support from our sponsors, Majerle’s Sports Grill and Southwest Gas, friends and supporters that helped make this program possible.
We meet many seniors during our farmer’s markets visits to senior communities that are blessed with the gift of longevity. They are healthy, beautiful and enjoy sharing their wisdom with others. Meet Ms. Jeweline Coleman. She is 90 years old and many of her fellow residents wanted to learn more about her as she celebrated her 90th year. This is a recent picture. We did a short question and answer interview. Listen to the audio below.
Gregory’s Fresh Market Place, we make it possible for people to get the fresh fruits and vegetables they need right where they live. We bring the market to them.
Audio Interview with Ms. Coleman [audio https://dianagregory.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/DG-Interview-Ms.Coleman2.mp3]
Gregory’s Fresh Market Place (#GFMP) launched “Nutrition for the Holidays” at Tanner Gardens Apartments.
Nutrition for the Holidays, sponsored by Southwest Gas, consisted of presentations by Debbie Polisky on nutrition, food demonstrations, games, healthy tips to follow during the holiday season, blood pressure testing provided by the Black Nurse’s Association and fresh fruit and vegetable sampling. The residents received a bag filled with fresh fruits and vegetables. We thank Garry Walters and Southwest Gas for providing the gift of nutrition to the seniors at Tanner Gardens Apartments. Bottled water was donated by Nestle Waters. We thank Allison Giles for enlightening everyone on the Farmer’s Market Nutrition Program and the assistance provided by Ledale Miles, Service Coordinator at TGA.
Once you reach “senior” status, the mail starts: “Urgent” medical info, “Urgent” – Do you need an assisted living facility? , “Urgent” – do you have money saved for retirement?, etc, etc. The language on the envelopes always push the need to “open and reply immediately”, (and you can just hear the unwritten–“Or, you’ll be sorry”!). I look thru them to make sure that I won’t be and then throw them away.
So, I’ll take my tomato seed letter as a sign to step up to better diet habits.
However, one notice did catch my eye. It said “free tomato seeds enclosed”, how nice. I opened that one, even though I don’t garden, I live in an apartment, but I appreciated the gesture. Not wanting to waste anything, I left the free seeds in the lobby for a neighbor who might be more inclined to have an urban vegetable plot on their balcony (read fire escape).
But then I got to thinking. Fresh tomatoes sound really delicious. My father would grow them in the back yard and they were usually sweeter than those found in the super market. He was proud of them. Nice memories.
I do frozen rather than fresh mostly, it’s often cheaper and it won’t spoil. No complaints, but, vegetables and fruits that are eaten close to where they’re grown just seem to have something more – probably more nutrients, taste and scent. I love to smell fruit at the local market
So, I’ll take my tomato seed letter as a sign to step up to better diet habits. I gifted the free tomato seeds, dumped the mail, but reminded myself that I deserve to smell and then eat fresh veggies and fruits whenever. They’re good for me, health wise and soul wise. (I will most likely feel better and less guilty after consuming a bacon sandwich.)
BTW: the letter was an offer to subscribe to a lifestyle magazine targeting seniors in Northern California.
