A Loyola alumnus with a passion for buying locally is making it easy for Loyola students to do the same by bringing the farm to the market.
Kevin Fitzwilliam, A’03, helped create the Hollygrove Market and Farm due to his disappointment in the amount of local and organic produce offered around the city. Now, for the first time, he is bringing an assortment of goods from the market to sell in the Peace Quad during lunchtime Monday, Feb. 1.
Fitzwilliam worked with Josh Daly, associate chaplain for Loyola University Community Action Program, Ignacio Volunteers and Sodexo Dining Services on getting weekly deliveries of seasonal produce from area growers to sell.
‘I have a pretty strong passion for local food and seeking more options at Loyola,’ Daly said. ‘I reached out to Kevin and the folks at Hollygrove Market and Farm and the folks at Sodexo, and one option that came up was that Hollygrove could set up tables and sell food. Caitlin Brewster (Sodexo area marketing manager), Heather Bacque (Sodexo general manager), and Ben Hartley (Loyola Dining Services general manager) have been great in helping out with this.’
Boxes filled with approximately 10 different types of seasonal produce will be sold for $20, as well as various ‘agrave; la carte items sold individually.
Fitzwilliam, a former Wolfpack cross country runner, studied mass communication and environmental studies at Loyola, and soon after began looking for ways to use his experience to help the city.
‘My background, academically and professionally, has been in the environment,’ he said. ‘Before Hollygrove (Market and Farm), I was working with urban planning.’
The idea for the Hollygrove Market and Farm came about after Fitzwilliam, his landlord and his girlfriend visited the Crescent City Farmers Market together to buy their produce for the week and talked over lunch about why there weren’t more options like that.
‘We would sit and eat at Joey K’s (Restaurant and Bar) on Magazine Street and complain about how difficult it was to get local produce,’ he said.
So Fitzwilliam contacted someone who could help him.
‘I got in touch with Paul Baricos, the executive director of the Carrollton-Hollygrove Community Development Corporation,’ Fitzwiliam said.’ The Carrollton-Hollygrove Community Development Corporation is a nonprofit organization that promotes neighborhood revitalization and supports low and mid-income housing development. They wanted an option for fresh food to be available to Hollygrove residents and other New Orleanians.
‘After Katrina, Hollygrove was considered kind of a food desert,’ Fitzwilliam said.
Together, the two thought of the Hollygrove Market and Farm, which found a home on the site of the old Guillot’s Nursery on Olive Street.
Bobby Guillot never returned to business after Katrina. When Baricos and Fitzwilliam first told him about the idea for the market, he ‘was interested, but not convinced,’ Fitzwilliam said. ‘By the second or third time, he was really excited about the project.’
Currently, Baricos is the general manager of Hollygrove Farmer and Market, and Fitzwilliam is the marketing director and public relations coordinator.
‘Getting the Hollygrove Market and Farm project started was a good feeling because it was a tangible way of having an impact,’ Fitzwilliam said. ‘I was also getting to satisfy the urban planning aspect of what I was doing.’
Now, Hollygrove Market and Farm is trying to work with Sodexo to expand their products to be included in meals in the Orleans Room and to be sold at The Market Store.
‘We wanted to start selling to the cafeteria, but there are insurance hoops to jump through first,’ Fitzwilliam said.
‘The way Sodexo works, corporately, is that they require producers to have pretty hefty insurance policies, which most local producers don’t carry,’ Daly said.
But Daly said that there is still hope to make it work in the future.
‘It’s not impossible,’ he said. ‘Sodexo is at University of Vermont, and their equivalent to our ‘Market Store’ is full of fresh produce from local producers. The question we want to ask Sodexo now is if there is one particular item that can be produced at a scale to put in the OR. I’m really hopeful that students will take a strong interest.’
Both said they believe that the effort will gain student support, even if it means starting with one weekly Peace Quad sale. And the idea is already gaining student support.
‘I really like buying high quality vegetables and I usually end up going to Whole Foods,’ philosophy senior Sergio Lobo-Navia said. ‘Having the local produce brought to me would be a really great idea since I can never get out to the Freret Street Market.’
History junior Ly Vo agreed.
‘I think it’s a great I idea,’ she said. ‘I’m from the Westbank, and with commuting, I don’t get the local access as much. It would definitely be convenient and more healthy to get produce on campus.’
‘It’s something that’s good and that people believe in,’ Fitzwilliam said. ‘We want to increase access to fresh, locally grown produce to Hollygrove and surrounding areas and educate about where your food comes from, how to grow your own food ‘hellip; This allows sustainability to get away from being something theoretical to being something practical.’
Kevin Zansler can be reached at’ [email protected]
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