Norwood Housing Authority hosts farmers market, resource fair

The Norwood Housing Authority (NHA) joined forces with several organizations – from Norwood and beyond – on Monday to host its first Family Farmers Market and resource fair around Washington Heights.

NHA Resource Coordinator, Morrill Memorial Library employee and Program Director for the Norwood Coordinated Family and Community Engagement (CFCE) grant program Liz Hogrell said the outing was a collaboration of many organizations.

Much like herself.

“This is the first time we’re doing this, and it’s an NHA-sponsored event for the 68 units here at the Washington Heights development,” she said. “The NHA also did this for its other properties, but we decided to turn this into a sort of resource fair for everybody involved. So we invited all the families to come.”

MJA Resident Services Supervisor Jennifer Waldron said the NHA has done several such markets for its senior and disabled housing properties, but not for yet for the family housing property at Washington Heights.

“We’ve done one at each of our sites – save for Nahattan – but the other sites have done this already, and we work with an organization called Full Belly Foods,” she said. “What they do is for 30 people, we pay $300 and we get enough bags for 30 people. And they’re full of lots and lots of good stuff.”

Full Belly Foods – FullBellyFoods.com – states on its website that it works to bring free farmers markets into affordable housing communities, and has worked for more than 190 such communities in the United States. Waldron and Hogrell said they’ve been a great partner.

“They delivered great produce here, just like a farmers market,” Hogrell said. “We bagged everything up, like carrots, onions, potatoes, etc., and they can come and just take a bag.”

“Full Belly goes to different places to find deals on different produce,” Waldron said.

Waldron said the market and the fair were well-received.

“It’s been great so far and people have been coming in,” she said. “We’ve got some vendors here as well, including the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA), the Morrill Memorial Library, the Parks Department, the Norwood Fire Department and the Norwood Ecumenical Food Pantry.”

The DTA helps residents connect and successfully sign up for Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

“I know two people who have already gotten help from DTA for SNAP,” she said. “It’s really good that they’re out here, because sometimes they’re just not as accessible if you’re trying to call on the phone. If you’ve got a person right here? You’ve got a person right here.”

“It mind sound cliché, but it really warms my heart,” she said. “Just seeing the community come together for these resource programs, it does. It really does warm my heart.”

Waldron said to keep an eye out for the NHA’s upcoming Frank Sinatra Show in November for the holidays, as well as the annual holiday meals the group puts together for the fall and winter.

“I’ve got Frank Sinatra coming to one of my sites,” she said, laughed and corrected herself. “A Frank Sinatra show, tribute band. I’m not conjuring him up!”

Waldron said they will have flu clinics from the Norwood Health Department, mental health talks from Riverside Community Care and more.

Norwood Firefighter Christopher Griffin said he came by to do outreach for the department.

“We’re trying to let Pat and I introduce ourselves to different members of the NHA and other similar organizations,” he said. “And so we’ve been trying to come out to events like this because Paul had been doing this himself for the last 15 or 20 years. He’s been the face everybody knows, and so now it’s just been me and Pat who’s been taking over.”

Griffin added that specifically, they were sharing information on the Senior Safe program, which is a state grant program that provides education on fire prevention for seniors. For more information on that, go to https://gvimes.link/snrsfprgm

For more information on the NHA, go to https://www.norwoodha.org