Four Black Baltimore middle school girls win $13,000 to turn a city bus into a fresh food market
Four middle school students secured funding to transform a city bus into a mobile market, providing fresh produce to underserved Baltimore neighborhoods.
🥹 Imagine being in middle school and already coming up with solutions for an issue affecting your entire community.
Back in 2023, New Song Academy students Aniya Ponton, Ryeona Watson, Samahj Chestnut and Logan Reynolds were just 13 and 14 when their idea, Bmore Fresh, earned $13,000 in funding from Philanthropy Tank. Their plan? Turn a used city bus into a mobile market carrying fresh, locally sourced fruits and vegetables into Baltimore neighborhoods where accessing healthy food can be difficult.
And this wasn’t an issue they chose randomly for a school assignment. The girls talked about experiencing the lack of healthy food options in their own community. What started as a classroom project grew into an idea involving local farms, refrigeration, shelving and a point-of-sale system inside the bus.
Four Black girls saw a problem around them and decided they could be part of the solution — before they even reached high school. That’s the kind of Black Girl Win we love to see. 🖤
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