Farmers Market Meeting

Here are some ideas gathered from the Social Entrepreneurship meeting at the library Thursday and the Farmers Market "Big Meeting" yesterday. They are related to the discussion Wendy and I had via email a while ago about the library hosting classes on sustainable living and related topics. These topics are of interest to the Chewelah Farmers Market because the more folks get into eating locally produced food the more they will come to the farmers market. The Farmers Market is interested in this because our goal is to serve the community by contributing to stimulating the local economy, environmental stewardship,and helping local folks get connected with high quality local food. We think folks don't shop at locally-produced food outlets because they don't understand the true/hidden costs of lower-price supermarket food. The locally-produced food outlets are (as far as I know):*Two stores - Front Porch in Addy and Meyers Falls Markets in Kettle Falls. *One restaurant - Courthouse Cafe in Colville. *One CSA - Stevens County CSA associated with (I think) Courthouse Cafe and Front Porch. *Three farmers markets - Colville Wednesday market, Colville Saturday market,and Chewelah Friday Farmers Market. One potential solution might be education... *Series of classes on sustainability in general; planning, procuring, cooking,and preserving local food; etc. offered by WSU County Extension and the Stevens County Library District held at libraries and farmers markets (depending on the nature of the class and time-of-year). *Special collections on the economics of food, home-growing, home-preserving,and cooking local foods at the libraries with special shelves and displays in prominent locations. *A special kiosk with free literature on all the above and visual displays clearly illustrating the total costs - to society and the consumer - of large-scale commercial agriculture/supermarket distribution compared to locally produced and sold food. These kiosks could be located at the libraries and then moved to the Colville and Chewelah farmers markets on market days and be placed next to the WSU Extension Master Gardener tables. *A series of newspaper articles on all the above plus the topics we talked about regarding y'all new Rural Project idea researched and written by local farmer,aGtivist and ace reporter Jamie Henneman. OF COURSE ALL THE ABOVE WOULD INCLUDE PLUGS FOR ALL THE ABOVE LOCAL FOOD OUTLETS!Additionally, a couple of ideas we have for the Chewelah Farmers market are... *Victory Garden Campaign - modelled after the program started by the City of San Francisco which was modelled after the WWII Victory Garden campaign. We hope to get some Chewelah Horizon grant money for this. *100 Mile Diet Campaign - fun way of challenging people to get as much of their food from within 100 miles as possible. Again, we're hoping for a little Horizon grant money for this. Peace, Ed Pace 509 935 6311
St. Paul Lutheran Churchhttp://chewelahlutheran.org/
FINGERPRINTS preschool http://fingerprintspreschool.org/
Chewelah Farmers Markethttp://chewelahfarmersmarket.blogspot.com/