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To mark the occasion Friday, Director of Economic Development Bruce Tuomala read a proclamation from the mayor, officially making Danbury a part of the national celebration.
Peggy Zamore, a nutritionist who works with the city’s Better Health and Better Food Program, helps run Danbury’s Farmers Market and is hoping to see Food Day become an annual event.
“We want to bring attention to food issues in the community,” Zamore said. “Our theme here is ‘Put Connecticut on your plate.’”
For the past six years, Zamore, with help of other city officials, has helped to run Danbury’s farmers market. It not only helps support farmers, but also helps get good food into the hands of those who may not be able to afford fresh food from a supermarket.
“We work very hard to support our local farmers,” Zamore said. “One of the things we do is we double the value of food stamps.”
The farmers market covers the cost of all debit transactions in order to draw more vendors, Zamore said. Currently, Danbury’s farmers market has seven vendors who sell everything from produce to clams.
Farmers market organizers are hopeful that Food Day could help continue the growth of the weekly market in the center of downtown, which in the last year alone has grown its number of shoppers by 50 percent.
Food Day is a nationwide celebration and movement to promote healthy, affordable, and sustainable food, and to inspire Americans to change their diets. Every Oct. 24, thousands of events around the country bring Americans together to celebrate and enjoy real food and to push for improved food policies.
The Food Day celebration in Danbury culminated with a “noon crunch,” where community members were encouraged to take a free locally grown apple and give it a big symbolic bite.
The Farmers Market in Danbury is open on Fridays, between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. at Kennedy Park.
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