The Bulb Gallery – LIsa Matthews

0:45	Introduction of Lisa Matthews and The Bulb Gallery
1:05	History of The Bulb Gallery
1:40	Current struggles with accessing food pantries in the Charlotte community
2:00	Alisha Streets and the birth of The Bulb Gallery
2:35	Locations and Schedules of The Bulb Gallery markets
3:35	Is The Bulb operating outside of Charlotte?
4:00	The impact by The Bulb Gallery within the Charlotte community and it’s process
5:42	Numbers for 2024: Guest Checkins, Households Helped and Lbs of Food Distributed
6:20	How The Bulb Gallery gathers produce, grocery store partnerships, etc for its markets
9:12	Sorting produce/Quality control
9:45	Working with composting company to donate produce that can’t be eaten
10:25	Agricultural and Culinary High School Programs
10:50	Free culinary services at the markets
11:56	Barrier-free + trust-based resources
13:43	How The Bulb Gallery is funded
14:56	The need for volunteers/Volunteer Opportunities
16:10	How to donate to The Bulb Gallery
16:45	How to get a Bulb Gallery market into the community
18:10	Requirements, stipulations or proof needed to access a market
18:32	Funding needs
19:12	Laws or provisions that impact The Bulb Gallery
21:05	Ways the community can support The Bulb Gallery
22:15	Ways the government could support The Bulb Gallery
24:45	The Innovation Barn and the concept of a circular economy/community
26:45	Lisa Matthew’s last thoughts

Phoenix Riesing 00:08
And so my name is Phoenix Riesing, and we are part of the UNCC Queen’s Garden Project with Dr. Flint’s oral history course. And I am sitting here with Miss Lisa Matthews, she, this is the Executive Director of The Bulb here in Charlotte. And we are going to get started today on December 20 or December 2nd, 2024 and it’s about 11:10 AM. And so thank you so much for sitting down with me. I really appreciate this.

Lisa Matthews 00:41
Absolutely.

Phoenix Riesing 00:42
And so, just to kind of, introduce our students and viewers or listeners, what is The Bulb?

Lisa Matthews 00:46
So The Bulb Gallery, we’re a non-profit mobile farmer’s market and we are working on bringing food equity into neighborhoods that don’t have as ready access to fresh and nutritious produce.

Phoenix Riesing 00:59
That’s incredible. That’s so what is The Bulb’s history; who created it?

Lisa Matthews 01:03
So we were started back in 2016, our founder, her name is Alicia Street. She was working in social services at the time and really noticed a gap in what she was able to refer clients to: the different pantries in the area. Knowing a lot of them were senior citizens, had chronic health conditions, etcetera, and understanding the benefit that fresh produce would be able to have on a lot of the symptoms that they were experiencing; those referrals just weren’t available. And then on top of that, a lot of the pantries that they could access, you can only access on certain days of the week, at certain times of the week and transportation made that difficult. So on top of having mostly shelf-stable items, limited transportation availability, also restrictions on how many times you’re able to access your pantry in a given timeframe, etc. It just presented a lot of challenges. So what she did was she started going to farmers markets in the area she was living and after the farmer’s market wrapped up on Saturday morning, went around to the farmers, asked them if there was anything that they hadn’t sold that didn’t have a home, and if they were able to donate that to her. So she loaded those things back up into her pickup truck and just drove right into the communities that she knew she had families living in so that they could come and get fresh produce straight from her truck.

Phoenix Riesing 02:34
That’s incredible. So, I mean, this was started as a grassroots.

Lisa Matthews 02:36
Very grassroots, yes.

Phoenix Riesing 02:38
That is incredible. So, where does The Bulb go now in the Charlotte area?

Lisa Matthews 02:40
So we are all over Charlotte right now. We’re down to Pineville, Mint Hill, Hidden Valley, we’re over by the airport and Renaissance West. We’re on West Blvd. We’re all up and down east Charlotte we’re at camp North End. We’re all over the place. I think right now we have 13 Market locations, and based on funding differences between them, some of them are every week, some of them are every other week, and some of them are once a month. But we really work on creating a, a reliable space and location. So people always know that on the 1st and 3rd Friday of the month, or the second and fourth Tuesday of the month, they can come to this exact location of this exact time and reliably access fresh produce.

Phoenix Riesing 03:31
That’s incredible. And that’s also really important. Do you guys have any markets outside of the Charlotte area?

Lisa Matthews 03:28
We right now don’t have any markets outside of the Charlotte area. We’re just operating in the Mecklenburg County right now, but we have operated in Cabarrus and Anderson counties previously, so are certainly open if the opportunities make sense.

Phoenix Riesing 03:44
That is incredible. And so in the years since it was created from 2016 to now, about 8 years. How big of an impact do you say, do you think has been made on food insecurity within communities through The Bulb? How many people do you think it’s helped?

Lisa Matthews 03:59
I mean, I think it’s huge. I don’t have an exact number over the source of that many. Um, number of years predating my history with The Bulb, but I can tell you this year I believe we are. Find it here in a second. How many people were on track to serve in 2024 And then in, uh, it was about this like with a different number of markets last year as well. And that’s the, the, the numbers of families that were able to serve and pounds of food that were distributing. That we’re working with area farmers on the towns are viewed were also rescuing from area grocery stores so food that was otherwise designated for the landfill and you know because and the very few store gets too many cucumbers shipped and they can’t move them in time Or. Or a partial pallet of tomatoes got damaged in transit instead of, you know, having to put those in the landfill. We’re able to bring those out into the community because that we serve have a great new sorters that go through everything to make sure that you know, everything’s going out is good quality for our community members. So yeah,

Phoenix Riesing 05:20
that’s really cool.

Lisa Matthews 05:22
Sorry, I can’t take my

Phoenix Riesing 05:24
no, that’s totally OK. And that’s incredible to hear that you guys are actually. Wait, circumventing like food going to the landfill and yeah,

Lisa Matthews 05:33
Because I think by the end of this year, we’ll probably be around, probably be around 20,000 guest check-ins and we’ll probably be around 60 to 70,000 total household members impacted and will be around. I’ll say. 350,000 lbs of food that we’re distributing to the community.

Phoenix Riesing 05:59
Wow So that is incredible and that’s our only one year wow you guys are a blessing to our community. Thank you so much. And so digging a little bit more in on how you guys are getting produce or food?

Lisa Matthews 06:15
so yeah I.

Phoenix Riesing 06:17
You mentioned that the grocery store is one way or that it started by picking up kind of extras from the farmers market. So what always do you guys, do you gather produce?

Lisa Matthews 06:28
Yeah, so we started with farmers market and we still have a deep love and appreciation and partnership with area farms. So we actually started a program. We’ve kind of evolved, but it’s called our Fresh Bold program. So that one is really funding produce from local farms to come into our market. So that’s the same quality produce that we’re sourcing that is going to have the top tier restaurants in town. So it’s not anything that’s otherwise it’s it’s perfect, it’s beautiful produce and so being able to support them. Culture spots, medium sized sustainably minded farms and purchasing fair markets from them and bringing that into our communities involving people who may not be as familiar with items that are grown in the Carolinas seasonally, you know the nutritional benefits etcetera of that. So that’s one way that we’re working. We also have. Farm out at Garinger High School and farm that Lomax Research Education farm. I’ve been Concord, relatively smaller amounts, but they’re growing, but are really good opportunities to get the community more involved out there, planting, weeding, harvesting, turning the fields. Etcetera And you know, bringing in a whole variety of, you know, additional supplementals or we’re throwing mediums throughout the year there as well. Especially during the summer months, a lot of community and home gardens,churches, etcetera, you know, if they have access or they’ll don’t dedicate, you know, a certain percentage of their plot to us, they’ll bring all of that in and donate it to us and we’ll be able to push that out into the market as well. So it’s just the truest like farm to table. Ariens uh and then again, the grocery stores are huge, a huge partner of ours. So Trader Joe’s are longest standing grocery partner. They’re incredible. They’ve been with us for at least six years, maybe longer than that. And we’ve really been able to see our relationship grow and evolve and doing. Ford pickups expanding to more locations for ads, their metropolitan location picking up 40th week right now and we’re at the railroad location three days a week right now. And thank you between them, I mean.It’s really high quality. I think this year they’re estimating 6 or $700,000 worth of it donated to our organization. And then we also just this year started partnering with People Foods and Costco as well. So in doing pickups from them once a week, getting all that stuff in here. So between these four different locations, we bring everything in our sorters. You know, any given day of the week you probably have it being too.States, uh, community members that come in and sort through every individual piece of produce, every single strawberry, every single banana box rates, etcetera, go through and really ensure that it’s the highest quality stuff. We usually see about like 85% of the producers coming in is perfectly good. Quality. So repackage all of that up and get that out to the market. Here in Innovation Barn, we have an on site composting partner. So anything that is deemed unsolvable we’re able to give to them. And so they’re making compost that supports more farming efforts. So yeah. Writing a really circular processing.

Phoenix Riesing 09:58
yeah this absolutely circular so sustainable. This is probably one of the best just food I organizations or or just systems that I’ve even seen and I love how it’s community-based and really gotten everybody so involved. You mentioned there was like. Some agricultural and school programs, so does that help students as well with like agriculture as those are those classes that they’re able to get involved in?

Lisa Matthews 10:25
So, we don’t have a formal relationship with CMS. We’re just located on CMS property, but with our farm space. But we do have a friendly relationship with the teacher and the culinary students. The satellite program at Garinger, so not necessarily in terms of egg, but we do have uh, culinary CTE students who actually serve at our Wednesday morning Karen through school markets. So they come out and they are teaching community members for shopping about the different produce items that are available on the market. That day letting them know fun new ways that they can pair it or nutritional benefits, etcetera. A lot of the kids go to the school are native or fluent Spanish speakers. A lot of the community members who shopped there also are to being able to have that Spanish history first language dialogue and creating a lot more approachability. To that to the space as well, I think just called people be more inclined to shop with us, be more inclined to try foods that they haven’t tried before.

Phoenix Riesing 11:25
Yeah, no, that’s incredible. And just to hear about the education too that’s being received for community members. I mean, that’s priceless. And I was going to ask how the bold funds fund. Fighting spammers, but we’ve covered that. So one thing that um, you’ve mentioned is this is kind of more, it sounds like the food pantry bought a farmers market. So which would you compare more to like does it does it cost money to get food from The Bulb Market? Or is there is it more like a food pantry?

Lisa Matthews 11:56
So we like to. Mr. ourselves a barrier free resource which they barrier free meeting one replace based. We’re going into the communities we serve. So us here in innovation barn right now, this is our hub. We don’t actually serve out of this location. It’s just where our storage facility administrative offices are. We go into the community sort of expressed interest and need for our services. And finding, you know, central community location that people are able to access. And then two, we don’t require, uh, referral identification or payment order to shop. Everything is totally free and it’s very trust based. Of based platform that we used to serve the community. We’re really trying to create that atmosphere of dignity and I guess in that trust we really found that a lot of people like an overwhelming number of the community members say that you know, I don’t need so much of that this week. Down a little bit less than this week or I’m going to be out of town so I’m not going to take or this or, you know, whatever reasons that people really do look out for each other and are really truly, you know, caring while their neighbors and they’re coming to shop with us and not, you know, abusing kind of this very account based platform and so. Working with funders on the back end the organization to make sure that that everything feels you know there is no expectation of of money.

Phoenix Riesing 13:25
Ah so it’s really just need-based but taking what she needed and and leaving more for your neighbors if you don’t need it. You see that? Heartwarming. So then how does the bulb fund itself?

Lisa Matthews 13:38
So historically we’ve been largely grant funded and still to this day are largely grant funded working right now. It’s really kind of changed that model a little bit. I think, you know in some capacities will always be a portion of grant funded, but. Trying to really amp up the individual giving and sponsorship portion that will hopefully create a little bit more sustainability and flexibility for the organization. OK, so see you are open for funding from the community, community and open for funding from the community and certainly people who donate to us, we can earmark dollars for certain areas they want to see their money go towards People always make sure to honor that, but but giving in that capacity allows. Both a lot more flexibility than grants allow in being able to make adjustments. You know, business changes throughout the year, food pricing changes, staffing changes. If something breaks and needs to be replaced, it offers us so much more flexibility to be able to operate. And so do you accept volunteers, good community members? Guests say we are a team of seven people here doing this, so we must certainly accept volunteers. We’re heavily reliant on the good of the community getting involved. We actually later today are making our big announcements. Our transition to a new volunteer management system in 2025, but everything can always be found on our website regardless of which platform it is. One reason now are the one in 2025. So the bulb gallery.org will have a volunteer drop down and to be able to sign up for everything. Sorting produce here at our headquarters, um, traveling with one of our team members to go pick up one of our grocery partners, go pick up one of our farm partners, and then going out into the community at a various markets and actually serving and meeting the people and then in the. Spring, summer and early fall, we also do open up volunteer opportunities at our farm and we’re in turn some people and groups can come in and. You know, do a whole variety of different activities, the same kind of,

Phoenix Riesing 16:05
I think I found where I’m volunteering this season. I’m so excited. And so same with donating?

Lisa Matthews 16:13
Then if you go to thebulbgallery.org and that’s how we can access donating, there’ll be there’s ways to give. Right now tab and so you’ll be able to, um, I think on there right now as we’re volunteer activities, um, financial donations and then we also have an Amazon wish list.

Phoenix Riesing 16:32
Ohh, we’re an Amazon wish list. That’s even more helpful. So, you know, I just need to sit at home and you still want to help. You can have. That’s incredible. So how could a community get a bull market to begin to set up there?

Lisa Matthews 16:46
So The Bulb is unique model in terms of we’re not necessarily pitching our services to any community. I’m not trying to say that I know the needs or wants of a community that. This area of data science, you’re food insecure. So I think that you need that. We essentially wait for grant opportunities to come through where it’s told to us by funding organization who has ties to the community or a community business, Community Center, etcetera then. Comes to us to let us know not just the need in terms of financial transportation etcetera, but in terms of the launch like thinking members of the press, they’re really interested in seeing that the. People are there and they will come. Ohh. So I’m just reaching out to us and, you know, starting the conversation, people, you know, whether it’s a church. Churches that working class and community organizations are funded through anyway for some of our markets through their neighborhoods programs. So really just working with the people who have been on the ground and you know, no community members are able to help organize and pull all of that together in collaboration with us.

Phoenix Riesing 18:00
Thank you. Definitely helps them. Are there any certain restrictions, requirements or stipulations for a community to receive a Bulb market?

Lisa Matthews 18:13
I think that no, not necessarily. I think the data would really have to ship it. It’s a it is a few insecure community just to demonstrate that there is need within the within the space. But other than

Phoenix Riesing 18:26
It’s incredible. And do you does the current funding that you have meet your needs?

Lisa Matthews 18:41
Yeah. And I mean we have some markets that are. Excellently funded, but we have other markets that we are you know kind of Frankensteining grant funding together and then you know our general operating fund supporting that goes to it as well. So we are always looking for for more supports. In terms of financial contributions, definitely.

Phoenix Riesing 19:10
And this would be an incredible organization to support. Absolutely. And so have there been any laws or provisions that have been passed that have made things difficult for the bulb in serving the community not directly

Lisa Matthews 19:17
not directly which they. I mean in terms of laws or legislation that, you know, affect farms in the area. And how that will ultimately impact pricing that does eventually trickle down to impact us between to secure a good portion of our food area farms. It cuts down on the depth of what we’re able to purchase for the same amount of money that maybe we’re able to purchase for earlier in the year or the year before etcetera. So that’s one way I think to just to terms of laws and legislation and how it impacts. The. I guess the financial well-being of communities as a whole and their need for our services to come in, it’s another pasty. So we’re looking at you know wrap around services in general in communities and where. Where the need is growing and then looking at, you know, what availability is in terms of grant dollars for greater competition for applicants trying to, you know, receive these grant dollars to support their their service. And you know, how far is that able to stretch to support all of

Lisa Matthews 00:20:44,060
the good or.

Lisa Matthews 00:20:49,530
And that’s essentially when you know they’re sole focus is uplifting communities and things that are making it harder and, and aside from donating and volunteering, how could the community better support the Bulb?

Lisa Matthews 00:21:05,650
Are those are mainly those who don’t like donating, volunteering?

Lisa Matthews 21:17
But I found, I think just telling people about the services that we’re providing. I think we’re about in the 4 1/2 years I’ve been with the organization and to see the growth and evolution in my time here. Word of mouth, it’s been such a critical factor in, in our success. We going to do a lot of advertising and first phase so uh. Or people you know, coming to the market, more people showing up and wanting to be involved in volunteering or community organizations coming to us and saying that they wanted me to market and are ready to collaborate on that. The vast majority of it is sporting mouth and having. It’s an experience that they’re having with us, sharing it with their friends, their neighbors, their community, etcetera.

Phoenix Riesing 22:10
That’s that’s awesome. And do you think there’s anything that the government could better do to support the vote? Like it’s good to hear that there’s no, you know, direct provisions or legislation that’s. Farming involvement, perhaps like more grants or, um, more protection for food? And is there anything that the Bulb would like to advocate for or hopes for?

Lisa Matthews 22:37
I think it comes into capacity. So in terms of uh that we’re rescuing immigration stores, there is no national mandates in terms of how produce at the grocery store is not able to sell, how that’s handled. So it does make it challenging for us. This is your new grocery partners, which is a portion of what helps our business we sustainable both financially and environmentally. And going out and and asking a grocery store to say that X produce that you weren’t able to move through when you donate it to us, those grocery stores stadium. So the culture isn’t built. And I think the only way is to do it from the top. Uh, and so we see more. Efforts but towards that. And then, uh, you know, just not necessarily it’s not specifically for the bulb, but as one social service of many if people are committed to secure their life be doing dealing with many other insecurities and so. See again, it’s a, it’s, it’s a, it’s a total effect, so to say as we’re supporting people’s economic growth and developments and variability to support their families, etcetera. You know, the more money that is able to flow into their pockets left our service hopefully able to complete it. We’re the type of business to say we work to be hopefully put out of business someday. Just just hoping to see, you know, more social support going security so that what we’re doing is obviously less. So this is something, you know, that we have.

Phoenix Riesing 24:33
Just wrapping up, something I’ve heard mentioned throughout this interview is the circular and sustainability. It’s really incredible. I noticed that the bulb is.