Farmers Market Update – February 2021

by Dan Foster 

 

New market participants coming soon:

• Bowl’d Acai Food Truck – juice, smoothies, acai bowls, and poke bowls
• Pound Bizness – small local business who makes mouth-watering pound cakes
• Vacos – local pop-up with unique vegan tacos 
• Moi Eat – local Vietnamese pop-up with refined spring rolls, banh mi, and pho.
• Williamson Produce – returning with first-of-the-season avocados

The Native American Health Center will continue providing COVID testing and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) distribution through March 27. This is a free service that is open to everyone. No appointment or insurance is needed.

Brittany Crepe’s last day at the Grand Lake Market was this past Saturday.

As the weather gets warmer, look for more artisans to be in attendance. 

Editor’s Note: Will Finnie, the Coordinator of AIM’s Bounty Box program is looking for additional volunteers at the Grand Lake Market to work either of two shifts. The first from 8:00–11:00 am picks up bulk produce, sets up the site, and fills the boxes. The second crew from 10:00 am–1:00 pm returns empty boxes to farmers, sets up the pickup lane, loads boxes into cars, and cleans up the site. This is a great way to support the market and also help those who are unable to physically shop at the market themselves. If you’re interested, email Will at Will@agriculturalinstitute.org.

AIM’s recent $20,000 fundraising campaign far exceeded all expectations, closing late last month with a total of $55,600. A small part of that success was due to CEO Andy Naja-Riese pledging to dress up as a bunch of grapes but only if they reached the $50,000 mark. They did just that, as evidenced by the photo above which I snapped as a Bounty Box was loaded into my trunk. Andy’s thank-you message to campaign donors concluded with this: 

The flood of generosity during this campaign has been humbling and deeply moving. It speaks to the strength of our collective commitment to local food, thriving farms, and community food access. We’re inspired and excited to keep building toward healthy local and regional food systems that fully nourish the earth and each other. 

The full text of Andy’s email thank-you is available on this link. 

Editor’s Postscript:  Bernie was spotted camping out alongside the park late Friday afternoon.
Rumor was that he wanted to be first in line for the Dungeness crab on Saturday.