Blue Ridge Area Food Bank holds market at Harrisonburg High School

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) -Blue Ridge Area Food Bank teamed up with Harrisonburg High School for their “Good Food School Market”.

It’s a farmer’s market-style event where students, their families, staff, and faculty, can get fresh produce and shelf-sustainable food items for free.

They say the main goal is simply to get food to the people, and they’ve found schools are a great place to do that.

”It’s a community meeting place, so we want to meet the community where they are. We don’t want to make them come to us,” Collen Berger with BRAFB said.

The market is set up on both sides of the school to make sure both students riding the bus home and being picked up have the opportunity to get a bag of food.

Berger said at past markets they have served between 300 to 500 people.

Students also get involved with the event. They help with the setup and distribution. This collaboration teaches them an important lesson.

“There’s a lot of peer-to-peer work involved, and it helps destigmatize the issues around food insecurity that might’ve existed previously,” she added.

Harrisonburg High School was the first partnership for this program, but Berger said they are in the process of trying to expand to neighboring counties.

The “Good Food School Market” will happen on the first Friday of every month for the remainder of the school year. It is open to the school community and starts at 2:45 p.m.

In the meantime, if you or your family need food, click here.