(Ed Note: The Wallingford Farmers Market runs through September 26th this year. That gives you three more chances to enjoy a stroll to your local farmers market before the long, bleak gray descends. Get on it!)
The Wallingford Farmers Market (Wednesdays, 4 – 7 pm in Meridian Park, through late September) is a highly attended community event: long lines for naan, kids running everywhere, buskers playing the Star Wars theme on a cello. My own experience suggests that half of the school-age children in the neighborhood pass through Meridian Park every Wednesday in the summer. The community did not clearly foresee this future. The farmer’s market began in the parking lot of the Wallingford center, and its move was a community-rending decision. Many people thought a move to the park would kill the farmers market.
The Seattle Farmers Market Association publishes an impact statement every year for the Farmer’s Market. The staff supporting the Wallingford Market were kind enough to provide a summary for 2017. The summary of general attendance from that report can be seen at right. The report raises as many questions as it answers, but much of the information suggests a successful market. Three thousand people a week spending a little over $20,000 in total with 30 vendors. One area of marginal success is food access. The Food Access portion of the summary provides insight into WIC, SNAP, and Fresh Bucks utilization in Wallingford, and our neighborhood has low utilization of these programs. The cause of which I leave open for the comments.
Seattle prides itself on community engagement and consensus-driven decision making. We followed that process for finding a new location of the farmers market, and people lined up on both sides of the issue. Several years on, we have data and experiences that suggest moving the farmers market was the correct decision. Some of us were correct and some of us were incorrect, and a few of us were quite public in our opinions. Taking strong stands publicly can be difficult to move past, and can even delay evaluating decisions.
This brief coda on the farmers market impact statement is added in anticipation of the inevitable evaluation of HALA and the densification of the city. The Farmers Market was small time compared to HALA. I leave it to the comments what we should watch for over the next few years to evaluate whether densification has worked or not.
Aside from all the dog whistles to have comments erupt in a controversy, I’d just like to say that the market was a delight to have in the new location. The park atmosphere made it much more friendly and community-like…nothing like walking barefoot in cool grass to buy fresh produce vs hot asphalt in a parking lot. And that’s just one element of it…it activated the park, the building, the playground. That old building can be a bit menacing with its forboding architecture and high hedge fence…nice to get in that park and see it’s actually a great fomenter of community. Many years of success ahead for the market, I hope.
“Some of us were correct, and some of us were incorrect.” Sweet. You want to bring back an old argument that’s completely moot at this point, and claim that these figures prove you’re right (I assume you supported the move), because “much of the information suggests a successful market.” And that furthermore it shows how we shouldn’t take strong stands publicly. OK, buddy, whatever. And then there’s the vague muttering about WIC et al. And … it has something to do with HALA? Is this an article, or some kind of provocation?
Please correct the opening of this post to show that the hours of the Wallingford Farmers Market are 3-7, not 4-7. Thank you!
Good luck with that.
i know its pretty quiet on this site, but to try and turn info about a farmers market into big action in the comments is pathetic. sorry i clicked. you got me i guess. yea.
I don’t think he’s doing it for wallyhood.org clicks. My guess is, development boosters haven’t been getting as much traction as they’re used to, lately, and he thinks he can win one for the team by defending the farmers market against imaginary neighborhood adversaries.
Neither. We were sitting around talking about what a hulla-balloo it was when the Farmers Market moved, how there were all sorts of dire predictions about how awful the new location would be, so thought it would be worth looking at what actually happened.
We don’t make money off of clicks. (We don’t make money at all, actually, all sponsor dollars go to FamilyWorks).
You should do an article about how there were no impacts from the homeless shed village. There was a lot of noise around that, too. I think someone had a thread in the forum about it?
How good of you.
I didn’t think the market would be successful, but glad to be wrong.
Is there a market this coming Wednesday?