Bronx Women Reach Out For Help After Vandals Destroy 'The Blk Projek's' Mobile Food Market
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Two Bronx women who have made it their mission to bring healthy living to their neighborhood in the form of fruits and vegetables, recently had their bus vandalized.
Now, they're asking for help to serve a community in need.
As CBS2's Elise Finch reported, the decorated former school bus is the cornerstone of a project known as The Blk Projek.
It's an organization aiming to bring healthy food and food education to a South Bronx neighborhood through urban farming and a mobile market.
"We have this bus that we've rehabbed. We've turned it into a clean energy vehicle, runs on vegetable, has solar panels on it. We take the bus out curbside, right on the street and do cooking demos using the food that we've grown at out farm," Tanya Fields said.
"Our interest is to make sure to educate the community on the types of foods they're taking in, why it's important the types of nutrition they can get from the food," Imani Vidal, Farm Manager, The Blk Projek.
Fields and Vidal are preparing to open a farm stand in the spring, but their entire project ran into a major road black after their bus was vandalized.
The steering column was damaged, garbage was strewn all over, and wires connecting to the solar array were pulled out.
Through their Facebook page Fields and Vidal have raised enough money to have the bus towed away, but enough to have it cleaned and repaired.
"It was not easy for me to be able to rehab this bus, I've made tremendous sacrifices to make that happen. It feels like such a setback, it's very hard not to give up," Fields said.
The community doesn't want them to give up.
"I would like to see the community come together and help these people out and get them going again," one resident said.
The duo hopes people value their work enough to help them through donations of money or time.
Fields said the money comes from a non-profit fiscal sponsor, and they were still raising money to finish renovating the bus.
