12 FRONTDOORS MEDIA | JUNE 2018 healthy meal by handing out bags of fresh produce in honor of Memorial Day. “Thank you for your service!” Gregory calls out with high energy and a genuine smile. But Gregory offers more than friendly greetings. The food, knowledge and community she provides are helping to save lives. Gregory’s Fresh Market, the mobile produce market she started in 2009, brings farmers markets to senior and veteran facilities, making it easy for them to shop for healthy foods. Gregory and a group of volunteers travel throughout the Valley on a mission to enrich lives through healthy eating — they provided more than 100,000 pounds of fresh produce to over 7,500 low-income and underserved seniors in Maricopa County last year. Committed to the cause, Gregory and all of her volunteers work for free. “I met her on the golf course and she was talking about doing something after retiring. I told her I’d volunteer until she got it going, and I’m still volunteering,” said Rufus McClain, an eight-year veteran with the organization. Gregory has never had a problem getting volunteers. They offer multiple reasons for donating their time — but all cite Gregory’s heartfelt passion for the mission as a primary cause. It was the summer of 1964 when Gregory’s dedication to seniors began. She was an 8-year-old girl playing with friends when she noticed that her 85-year-old neighbor, Ms. Fannie, needed help. Ms. Fannie had taken two buses to the grocery store and needed assistance hauling her groceries up the eight flights of stairs back to her apartment. So Gregory stopped playing games to make Ms. Fannie’s life a little easier. Gregory didn’t know it at the time but Ms. Fannie lived in a “food desert” and had limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables. Today, more than 50 years later, this problem has not gone away. So Gregory has made it her mission to supply healthy foods to older adults like Ms. Fannie, a group that has limited access to fresh fruits and vegetables — and respect. In Maricopa County, adults over 65 experience high levels of poverty, which has a direct impact on their health and well-being. “One out of seven seniors in Arizona goes to bed hungry because they have to choose between food and medication,” Gregory said. “Most of those seniors live in food desert areas and they live on a fixed income of less than $700 a month. By the end of the month, many of them don’t have money to buy food.” With little money and limited resources, Gregory’s clients often lack the support and services needed to obtain fresh, healthy foods. “Most of the people we serve are seniors. They’re on walkers and scooters. They’re in wheelchairs. So they can’t get out to go to the grocery store,” Gregory said. “We thought the best way to help them would be to bring a mobile market with fresh fruits and vegetables to where they are.” In doing this, Gregory discovered that she ❝ ❝ One out of seven seniors in Arizona goes to bed hungry because they have to choose between food and medication. — Diana Gregory COVER STORY CONTINUED

JUNE 2018 | FRONTDOORS MEDIA 13 Fresh Express These are the programs and services Diana Gregory Outreach Services provides: NOURISHING SENIORS offers interactive workshops that teach healthy eating and lifestyles VEGGIES FOR VETERANS provides homeless veterans with access to fresh fruits, vegetables and nutrition education HEALTHY COOKING CLASSES works with nutritionists and nutrition experts to offer healthy cooking classes GRANDPARENTS RAISING GRANDCHILDREN helps grandparents stay healthy as they raise grandkids NOURISHING GRANDKIDS teaches children healthy eating and cooking GIFT OF NUTRITION gives more than 2,000 seniors bags of fresh produce during the holidays