Different customers and different markets


By Serge M

Hello, this is Serge once more. For those that don't already know, I've been at MAP for 4 years now and this summer I'm working as a Mobile Market Specialist. To recap what the Mobile Market does, we sell fresh vegetables throughout the city and the vegetables are stored in our refrigerated truck, the explaining how it is mobile.

This blog post is mainly about the different types of customers we get at different locations. This doesn't include customers at Elim place because I have not been there this summer. So, our other locations this summer are:

  • Massachusetts Farm on Tuesday, 4 -6 pm
  • Gerard's Place on Wednesday, 11-1 pm
  • and finally, Salvation Army on Friday, 11-1 pm

Believe it or not, each site attracts different types of customers. On Massachusetts Ave most of our customers are English second speakers. We encounter more ESL here than any other site. The biggest struggles with those customers are they they don't understand what we're saying and/or try to cut deals with us without knowing we make no profit off of the food we sell. It's hard trying to serve customer that don't understand what we're saying and are not accustomed to our produce.

At Gerard's Place most of our customers are women of difference ages, but none of them are youths. We hardly have any youths at any sites.

At Moot's place we mostly have elderly customers at our stand. It is also the site where we sell lots of watermelons. Salvation army by far has been a really diverse place, although all of out customers are people that work right across from the stand.

It's really important for us to keep track of what kind of customers we serve because of grant purposes. We rely a lot on grants to support us since we're a non-profit and those who help us our want to know what their money is used for and who it is helping.

If you're reading this blog and and think you're interested of that you'd like to be one those few helping us make a difference on customer at a time, then you should do so.

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