A funny thing happened on our search for an oasis......

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​​It didn't take the team long to hit the ground running.  We began brainstorming the issues and started mining the data on the City of Chicago's Data Portal.  We pulled data sets on farmers markets, businesses licenses, food inspections, socioeconomic census indicators, grocery stores, and as traveling to a store can be as problematic as finding fresh produce and vegetables we looked at bus routes as well.

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During our search for information, the team ran across a mobile bus that brings fresh produce and vegetables to the communities impacted the hardest.  Fresh Mobile is a moveable food oasis that covers the South and West sides of Chicago from Mondays through Saturdays.  The concept is unique and fit perfectly into our goals of how we could hack solutions to address food deserts.  In the true sense of hacking, and after checking their website and realizing that we had about 35 minutes to get to Fresh Mobile's last location stop of the day, we jumped into action and went on a field trip!

 

We brought back invaluable insight on food deserts shared with us through our interview with Riley, who helped us understand why Fresh Mobile is an important asset to the community in more ways than just selling produce and vegetables.  Our expertise can help them:

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• Inform communities where the Fresh Moves bus will be during the week through innovative technology solutions
• In their public outreach and education efforts on a healthy eating lifestyle
• Raise public awareness of food deserts and ways to eliminate them
• Educate people on fresh fruits and vegetables ​and the benefits from eating them

 

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