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News & Views of Phillips Since 1976
Saturday January 4th 2025

Food Shelves, Farmers Markets Respond to Food Access Issues in Phillips

By AUTUMN FITZSIMMONS and KYRA VENNA, Community Journalists-in-Training

The Midtown Farmers Market is located at 2225 E Lake St. when the market is in season. SOURCE: Cirien Saadah

Food access is the idea that all people in a community should have access to healthy and affordable food. In the Phillips Community, that has historically been a problem.


“With the community’s limited access to better grocery stores, there has been an increase in patients with hypertension and diabetes related to the limited access to healthier foods”, said Marcus Milani, Doctoral student at the University of Minnesota and Co-Chair of the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic (PNC).
The Phillips Community was at one point, according to reporting from Minnesota Native News, considered a food desert because there is limited access to healthy and affordable food. Whether or not the community remains a food desert is a question that is difficult to answer.


Community health workers like Milani believe that if the community had more grocery stores in closer walking proximities then those same community members would have greater access to affordable healthier foods.


Many residents in the Phillips Community are only able to access the bigger grocery stores if they have access to a vehicle. This results in the community having to rely on local food shelves or less healthy options at corner stores and the like.


Pillsbury United Communities operates one of those food shelves and there are also community gardens and local farmers markets – like Four Sisters Farmers Market and Midtown Farmers Market – working to bring that healthy and affordable food to people.


In June 2024, the Star Tribune talked to vendors at Four Sisters and Mo Hanson, director of the Midtown Farmers Market. In that interview, Hanson noted that farmers markets are necessary in communities like Phillips where it’s important to make healthy food “visible and accessible.”


There are also preventative measures in place by the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic (PNC).
“One of the big emphasis of our clinic is that we always have nutritionists on hand every night to be able to counsel our patients on helping them manage their diabetes. We also do a fresh produce night monthly with an outside organization to give us fresh fruits and vegetables and we’re able to just give it away to patients. That is a huge problem in Phillips because there is just not a lot of easy access to quality fresh produce,” said Milani.


Both the Midtown Farmers Market and Four Sisters Farmers Market closed for the season in October. You can learn more about PNC at https://mphysicians.org/pnc

Autumn Fitzsimmons is Senior Exercise and Sport Science student at St. Catherine University.

Kyra Venne is Senior Exercise and Sports Science student at St. Catherine University.

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