How UNT Dallas plans to tackle miles of food insecurity in Dallas — with a bus
By Malvika Manoj, 12th grade, Plano West Senior High School
Dr. Kelly Varga, a biology lecturer at UNT Dallas, is planning to attack food insecurity with a low-emission bus complete with a generous $268,000 Toyota Social Innovation grant trailing behind. But these buzzwords mask the project’s humble beginnings.
Two years ago, Varga took students from her environmental science class to Mill City Farm — a community garden located in Fair Park, Dallas. Situated in a “rough and tough area”, the garden functions as an after-school program to teach young children how food grows.
“From there, I became interested in the concept of farming, which developed into a deeper interest to learn about food insecurity,” Varga says.
It’s an issue that plagues the region south of I-30, the North Texas Food Bank notes. 18.2% of households in Dallas County, specifically, face hunger.
The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) broadly defines food insecurity as the “limited availability of nutritionally adequate food”.
Though Varga knows that the nearest grocery store in affected areas can be more than five miles away, she emphatically believes that “everybody should have access to healthy options in their community” without “any version of environmental racism and injustice preventing [them]”.
From the class trip emerged the idea of a Fresh Food Mobility Market. Partnering with four different organizations, Varga hopes to launch a low-emission bus supplied by DART, fueled with funding from Toyota, executed by UNT’s Business School, and maintained by Feeder Valley Community College students.
Produce will be collected from local community gardens and later be sold at a wholesale cost to food insecure areas.
When asked about the launch date of the bus, the UNT lecturer promptly responded, “spring of 2019”. Perhaps this New Years’ resolution will be fulfilled.
