Family Fun at the Farmers Market
Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
With all the time we spend online it is nice to have the Fourth of July to look forward to. It is a big day for good old in-person cookouts and picnics with friends and family. And there is no better place to get the food you’ll need than your local farmers market. ShoreBank is lucky enough to host a farmers market every Wednesday during the summer in the parking lot of our branch at 71st and Jeffery in Chicago. I stopped by last Wednesday expecting a little dose of food – and while I got that, I also ended up getting a big dose of family.
I had heard of San Diego and San Francisco but…SanJustins? How did I miss them on my last swing through the west coast? SanJustins is a small bakery stand at the farmers market. It is run by Sandy with a lot of baking done by her son Justin (get it? SanJustin). Even her sister was helping her out. Sandy is building her business in Chicago and has her business plan – for now she is three weeks into her first season at a farmers market. She already has loyal customers (one stopped by for her sweet potato nut bread) and she is testing ideas and responding to market feedback (she added banana nut bread without sugar for customers who might be diabetic).
While Sandy may be in her first season, Andy of Blankenship Farms essentially grew up at farmers markets – this one included. Although Andy has had a stand at our farmers market for 6 years, his parents were previously there for over a decade. And as a little boy he came with them so some of Andy’s customers have known him since he was a kid. And this week – cherries should be coming in!
The “all-in-the-family” trend continued at Mark Farm but in a way that surprised me. This farm is in Indiana but the first person I talked to surprisingly lived across the street from the market, on Chicago’s South Side. Gregory was working the stand after his one minute walking “commute.” But he isn’t the first one in his family to make that short walk to work. His father was a Mark Farm customer who later started working there and Gregory has followed, literally, in his footsteps.
So if your local farmers market is full of great family stories too – and I bet it is – there is actually a way you can leverage your digital expertise to help. The site Care2.com is running an online voting campaign on farmers markets. Vote for your favorite and the market with the most votes will get $5,000. Three cheers for the family of farmers markets!
