New program to replace Market on the Move

Rather, an identical program, Produce on Wheels - With Out Waste — POW-WOW for short — will be held by Borderlands Food Bank, which formerly provided and transported the produce offered at Market on the Move.

Borderlands Food Bank plans to hold its weekly events at the same sites established by Market on the Move, as well as new sites, and is hosting meetings with host site organizations next week.

The program — which will also cost $10 — will start sometime in November.

In a memo sent to Market on the Move’s host site coordinators, Borderlands Food Bank says the decision was mutual, between itself and The 3000 Club, for it to take over distributing the produce.

“The 3000 Club has been an agency of Borderlands Food Bank and through this agency the MOM (Market on the Move) was developed,” reads an excerpt from the memo.

“Borderlands Food Bank has been the donor of the produce and has transported the produce to all the host sites. Through a mutual decision, The 3000 Club will no longer be an agency of Borderlands; therefore MOM will no longer be the entity for the produce distribution sites.”

Despite the “mutual decision,” Ethel Luzario, president and CEO of The 3000 Club, was surprised to see the memo had been sent to the Market on the Move site coordinators, since Borderlands allegedly used The 3000 Club’s contact list without its permission.

“Yesterday, a memo went out to all of our site coordinators from Borderlands Food Bank informing them that there will be a new program for the produce distribution,” Luzario wrote in a Facebook status update. “The email went out, using the personal contact information of all our site coordinators, without prior permission from The 3000 Club. … As you can imagine, BFB’s change of produce distribution strategy deeply saddens us.”

Determined to focus on the positive, Luzario wouldn’t comment on what led to the decision to sever ties. Instead, she said The 3000 Club is currently working on a way to restructure the Market on the Move program, with the goal of continuing as soon as they can.

“We will restructure MOM and intend to use it in the nearest future,” Luzario said in an email. “The service has been a staple program to our organization and, through MOM, we have built relationships with many people throughout Arizona.”

Since the announcement of the end of the partnership between Borderlands Food Bank and The 3000 Club, Luzario said her organization has received “a tremendous outpouring of support” from host sites, volunteers and people the organization serves. “We appreciate the encouragement and the validation that the services we provide are making a difference in the communities throughout Arizona.”

The decision to end the partnership was made in order to streamline the food distribution process, said Yolanda Soto, CEO and president of Borderlands Food Bank.

“Through mutual agreement, it was decided it would be more efficient to streamline the redistribution of this food directly from Borderlands Food Bank under the program Produce on Wheels - With Out Waste,” Soto wrote in an email.

“We believe we will not only be able to retain a majority of our supporters we have had in the past, but will be able to add additional sites.”

Donations received for produce at POW-WOW events will be used to pay the overhead that helped fund the 39 million pounds of produce redistributed this fiscal year, including the cost of transporting the produce throughout the state over a total of 218,615 miles, Soto said.

Borderlands did not receive money from The 3000 Club for produce or its transport, Soto said. However, it did receive random donations from The 3000 Club. But Borderlands never knew if or when it would receive additional funds.

“Any donation of produce to The 3000 Club and the MOM project was a voluntary and unconditional transfer on our part,” Soto said. “We will in the future charge other networking organizations a shared maintenance fee to assist in the cost of transportation, as do most other food banks of our size.”

Until it is able to reinstate Market on the Move, The 3000 Club will continue to focus on its other community programs like the thrift store in its Tucson warehouse, a medical reclamation program, computer refurbishing and recycling.