From left, Laura Lee Murphy, Amanda Hosey, Michaella Hosey, Janelle Jelks, Emma Kate Whatley and Mary Grace Watson prepare bags of fruits and vegetables Thursday morning to be distributed that afternoon as part of the Healthy Colquitt Coalition’s Mobile Farmers Market.

A desert, as anyone knows, is a place without water, but a “food desert” is a place without a variety of nutritious food. While the nearest desert to Colquitt County is halfway across the country, the nearest food desert is probably a whole lot closer.

Emily Watson, public health coordinator for the Archway Project, said a food desert is defined as any place more than a mile from a source of a variety of fruits and vegetables. The Healthy Colquitt Coalition, which which she is affiliated, has received a United Way grant to identify food deserts in Colquitt County and work to get fruits and vegetables to the residents of those areas.

Students of the University of Georgia College of Public Health are conducting the study. While they aren’t finished identifying the neighborhoods to target, the Healthy Colquitt Coalition on Thursday began carrying groceries to needy people as a first step in building the framework for meeting those areas’ nutritional needs.

“The goal is to get fruits and vegetables to people who don’t have access to them,” Watson said.

The students have identified which stores in Colquitt County sell a variety of fruits and vegetables, she said, and they’ve plotted them on a map. Next, they have to identify what neighborhoods lie beyond the 1-mile reach of those stores. After that, the question becomes which of those neighborhoods lack transportation to reach stores more than a mile away.

“Even within a mile, there are folks who can’t walk a mile,” Watson said, “or don’t have money to spend on fruits and vegetables.”

Primarily the affected areas will be outside the city limits of Moultrie, she said, because there are very few areas within the city that are more than a mile from a store.

The other half of the effort kicked off Thursday with the delivery of 125 bags of vegetables and fruits to the residents who participate in the Meals on Wheels program. The bags contained squash, cabbage, zucchini, carrots, onions, cantaloupe and sweet potatoes, as well as recipes and preparation recommendations from the UGA Cooperative Extension Service, Watson said.

She said each bag contained enough of each vegetable to make one dish, so the contents could feed the recipient for a week or more.

“You’re not going to cook all of those at one meal,” she said.

Plans call for two more distributions this year, she said, “so we can figure the best way to do it.” In 2013 and 2014, distributions are to be held once a month.

The effort represents a multi-agency partnership, Watson said. In addition to the Healthy Colquitt Coalition, the UGA College of Public Health and the Extension Service, participants include the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, the Moultrie Senior Center and Packer Produce.

“Packer Produce has been a wonderful partner to actually get the fruits and vegetables,” Watson said. “They let us use their coolers and their space.”

She said the group hopes to work with local farmers for future distributions, receiving produce the farmers can’t sell and taking it to the needy. Starting next quarter, they hope to include a food preparation demonstration by a Colquitt County Extension agent.

The project is being funded by a Community Impact Grant from the United Way of Colquitt County. The grant program was announced in August 2011 as a way for the local United Way to have a greater impact on the community.

The United Way of Colquitt County chose to focus the grant on health issues because, as Executive Director Angela Castellow pointed out at the time, other groups were already working on those kinds of issues, and the United Way money would help those efforts along.

Proposals were solicited for the $30,000 grant — divided over three years — and the Healthy Colquitt Coalition’s “Mobile Farmers Market” was funded. Long-term plans call for an income component in hopes the market can become self-sustaining, according to a United Way press release.