Making healthy food accessible: Student leads pay-what-you-can farmer’s market

February 7, 2024

Editor's note: This article originally appeared on Penn State News.

By Jessica Hallman

When he was younger, Jimmy Alamia, a third-year Schreyer Scholar studying chemical engineering, experienced health issues that affected his digestion. The experience made him more aware of the importance of nutrition and foods that promote a healthy, high-mobility lifestyle.

At Penn State, that awareness has led Alamia to spearhead an initiative to make nutritious food more accessible to his peers. In fall 2022, he led the launch of the Feed the People Market Stand at University Park, a pay-what-you-can farmers market to make healthy eating easy and affordable for the campus community.

A collaboration between the Dr. Keiko Miwa Ross Student Farm and the Lion’s Pantry, the farm stand operates once a week during the fall harvest season.

“College students often struggle to make healthy food a part of their meal planning, whether due to budget, time or limited opportunities to shop,” Alamia said. “My hope is that the farm stand gives Penn State students regular access to fresh, healthy items."

He added, "We’ve had so many customers come back and say how excited they were to be able to cook with the produce or to try different items they don’t usually find other places, like arugula or tomato varietals. So many of our customers would talk about how happy they were to eat fresh food.”

Jimmy Alamia Credit: Patrick Mansell / Penn State. Creative Commons

According to the latest Food and Housing Needs Survey conducted by Penn State Student Affairs in fall 2022, 14.6% of respondents at University Park indicated that they identify “moderately well” to “extremely well” with the statement that they have “trouble securing enough food each day.” Alamia's farm stand aims to address that need by giving students the opportunity to obtain free or low-cost food in a central location on campus: the HUB-Robeson Center.

“It’s a visible, central location that is open to all shoppers, which can help reduce potential stigma around shopping at locations such as pantries,” said Leslie Pillen, associate director of Farm and Food Systems. “Fresh vegetables can be particularly challenging for students to access, and while we have many full-service grocery stores and supermarkets around town, none of them are within a feasible walking distance to campus — especially for students trying to carry bags of groceries. So providing for the nutritional needs of students through a diverse offering of foods, which the Feed the People Food Market offers is an important part of addressing food insecurity.”

A collaboration to maximize impact

The idea for the farm stand came to Alamia after he took a tour of the Lion’s Pantry, University Park’s official on-campus food pantry. He noticed that fresh produce was not plentiful among the pantry's offerings. He wanted to draw on some of his own experiences with healthy eating to make an impact and applied to become one of the first five inaugural interns at the Lion’s Pantry for the fall of 2022.

Jimmy Alamia stocks donated canned goods at the Lion's Pantry. He became one of the first five inaugural interns at the Lion's Pantry in the fall of 2022. Credit: Provided by Jimmy Alamia. All Rights Reserved.

At the same time, the Student Farm was seeking ways to distribute produce that it grew. As a member of the Student Farm Club and its food justice project team lead, Alamia connected the dots and saw an opportunity for the two organizations to collaborate and maximize the impact they made for Penn State students.

student stocked canned food at local food pantry

“We had a brainstorming meeting on how we could put the produce to good use,” Alamia said. “We wanted to keep it within Penn State, and decided on the Feed the People Market Stand.”

Thanks to a generous donation from Robert and Cynthia Van Druff, Alamia collaborated with his team members to build a budget for the farm’s pilot year to fund the purchase of market supplies, including tablecloths, baskets, wagons and produce bags and other packaging. The team also managed schedules to coordinate the weekly harvest and delivery of produce; learned to document important quantifiable data, to be able to report on the farm stand’s output and use the information when applying for future grants; and gained experience in recruiting and managing volunteers, who are critical to the farm’s operations.

“Penn State is a great place to make your own opportunities,” Alamia said. “It has been a really great place for me, and a lot of other people, to make things happen and grow our own potential.”

Thanks in large part due to Alamia’s efforts, the Feed the People Market Stand recently wrapped up its second successful season. During its 10-week run in fall 2023, the farm stand sold or gave away more than 600 pounds of fresh produce to nearly 400 customers. The selection included seasonal produce such as bok choy, cabbage, lettuce and microgreens, various types of peppers and tomatoes, herbs, squash and garlic, among others.

“Jimmy consistently contributes thoughtful insight to addressing food insecurity, stigma and service,” said Heide Gibson, associate director of Student Affairs and manager of the Lion’s Pantry. “Rather than doing so through a lens of overwhelm, he does so from a place of wanting to act and identify what can be done.”

Feeding a community

The Feed the People Market Stand recently wrapped up its second successful season. During its 10-week run in fall 2023, the farm stand sold or gave away more than 600 pounds of fresh produce to nearly 400 customers. The selection included seasonal produce such as bok choy, cabbage, lettuce and microgreens, various types of peppers and tomatoes, herbs, squash and garlic, among others.

Credit: Patrick Mansell / Penn State. Creative Commons

Real-life experience

In the fall of 2023, Alamia’s involvement with the farm stand came from overseas. Thanks to a number of grants and scholarships he received through Penn State, he spent the semester pursuing a certificate in international engineering through an education abroad program in Madrid, Spain. While there, he also served as a research and development process engineering intern with Water2kW, a company founded in 2020 that develops innovative technological solutions in the production and use of hydrogen, with the aim of implementing them quickly, efficiently and safely in a variety of sectors.

“I decided to study abroad because I did not want to waste the opportunity of having a fully funded international experience while I had the time to do so,” Alamia said. “I had only ever taken vacations on the Eastern Seaboard, and I felt like I was truly lacking cross-cultural competency. I wanted to see how other people lived and how they approached questions plaguing my generation about environmental sustainability, human welfare and happiness.”

In the fall of 2023, Alamia took advantage of the opportunity to pursue a certificate of international engineering and complete an internship through an education abroad program in Madrid, Spain. Credit: Provided by Jimmy Alamia. All Rights Reserved.

Alamia said that his experience in Spain, and through a prior Maymester study abroad program in Thailand, has complemented the technical knowledge he’s gained through his Penn State education. The experiences have also validated his plans to focus his future career on work that is human oriented and aims to better society.

“Traveling abroad was quite honestly motivated by a lot of fear; I do not want to end up being a stagnant human,” he said. “I want to be approachable and understand a vast array of situations. I want to be better prepared to help people in circumstances with a lot of nuance. My time abroad allowed me to build on those skills.”

This spring, back at University Park, Alamia is continuing his work with the farm stand in preparation for the 2024 season. He also recently began a new position as engagement director at the Lion’s Pantry. In that role, he will focus on planning interactive events to increase meaningful involvement among the organization’s members to foster a greater sense of community, and to extend partnerships outside of Penn State to grow involvement with and donations for the pantry.

‘Food brings people together’

Alamia hopes to continue working on University-wide projects focused on environmental sustainability and food justice, and ultimately aims to make a similar impact beyond Penn State after he graduates.

“I’ve grown to realize that there is a lot of policy that needs amending, and critical thinkers are needed,” he said. “With my engineering background and international experiences made possible through Penn State, I feel like I could come up with some creative solutions to help with whatever problems I become passionate about, and I have the power to serve in the future. I want to do something to better the world.”

For now, Alamia will continue doing his part to better the Penn State community through his continued efforts to address food insecurity and to promote healthy eating.

a group of students stand over vegetables and smile while taking a selfie

“I’m very passionate about healthy food,” Alamia said. “As I’ve gotten older and realized how much healthy food has helped my productivity, my self-esteem and my confidence. It sounds silly to some people, but I think fresh food and fresh produce have made my life a lot richer. So, I hope for other people, the farm stand can give them an opportunity to at least consider how fresh food can be fun.”

Alamia continues to incorporate fresh food in his own cooking. His specialties are soup, homemade bread and a fried eggplant mozzarella sandwich topped with spinach and arugula. His roommate, he said, makes particularly good desserts, so the two often share meals together in their apartment and give extras to their friends and neighbors.

“Food brings people together,” Alamia said. “And when it’s easy to access, it especially brings people together.”

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