Meet Alex Freedman, our Mobile Market Summer Fellow

The Arcadia Team is proud to count Alex Freedman among its ranks, a recent graduate from Tufts University and a Fellow in their Active Citizenship Summer program.  Both Alex and Tom will be joining us through August, bringing their varied experiences and perspectives to our organization. 

What experiences have prepared you for this position?

I've been growing food in my backyard since the 5th grade, and prior to graduating this May I helped run the Tufts Student Garden.  I think, however, that the most formative experience was my time at CitySprouts in Cambridge, MA, where I helped run their summer internship program for middle schoolers in the Cambridge Public School system.  Through this program, we taught lessons on gardening, cooking, food systems, and environmental stewardship.  This was the first time I got to put into action what I had been learning at school about food systems, food justice, and alternative forms of agriculture.  The learning curve was steep, and there were definitely challenges -- lessons which I was able to learn from for my current Fellowship at Arcadia.

What do you hope to come away with from your summer Fellowship with Arcadia?

I am really excited to be working with Arcadia!  I really hope to come away from this experience with a deepened understanding of local food systems and food justice issues specific to the D.C. area, as well as the practical life skills needed to run the Mobile Market.  The occasional bunch of kale or pint of berries wouldn't be so bad either!

What about this position are you most excited for?

I am really excited for the diversity of roles I get to play in this position.  I get to harvest and process produce, market it though outreach and social media, sell it directly to customers, and then deal with the financial side of running the market.  I love that I can do a job that is on the ground, directly serving people, and seeing the effects of the work that I do, while also getting a chance to experience all these different facets of what goes into running the Mobile Market.

If you were a vegetable, what would you be?

I would be a purple string bean -- they are fun, flavorful, and a little unexpected, but once you cook them up, they turn green, and you see they're not all that different from other string beans.  And who doesn't like unusually-colored vegetables?!

What’s your favorite season for growing produce and why?

I love the early spring when leafy greens and other cold weather crops are just getting started and beginning to sprout.  There is nothing more exciting than to look around at the cold barren soil of winter and see happy, little, green sprouts poking through the surface.