{"id":244982,"date":"2012-04-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/uptown-farmers-markets-expanding-to-the-community-and-giving-back\/"},"modified":"2012-04-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-13T07:00:00","slug":"uptown-farmers-markets-expanding-to-the-community-and-giving-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/uptown-farmers-markets-expanding-to-the-community-and-giving-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Uptown farmers markets expanding to the community and giving back?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Por Margie M. Palmer | Reportero SDUN<\/strong>

\"Uptown<\/a>
Photo courtesy of Cat White, SD Weekly Markets<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

San Diego has some of the most exquisite weather in the country, so it\u2019s not surprising that area farmers have a harvest season that spans longer than most. The city\u2019s numerous weekly farmers markets provide these farmers opportunities to sell their wares and integrate with the community. Farmers markets in Hillcrest and North Park have added two new programs to extend their community involvement in their weekly markets. <\/p>\n

The Hillcrest farmers market, open on Sundays from 9 a.m. \u2013 2 p.m. on Lincoln Street at Normal Street, offers approximately 125 weekly vendors who sell fruit, vegetables, arts, crafts, pre-prepared foods, beverages and more. <\/p>\n

Hillcrest Business Association (HBA) Marketing and Communications Director Lisa Weir said she believes this market stands out because it has that \u201ctrue community feel.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you go to the Hillcrest farmers market you feel like you\u2019re part of something,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

Weir said the HBA recently hired farmers market regular Jamie Weisman to blog regularly about the market\u2019s current and upcoming happenings. Weisman\u2019s blog, Market Girl, can be found on the Hillcrest farmers market website.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought to ourselves that from a communications standpoint that it would be great if we could replicate that [community feel] in a virtual communication space so as to mirror what happens every single Sunday,\u201d Weir said. <\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s a foodie but someone who isn\u2019t out of touch. She\u2019s in her 20s, loves to cook and she even teaches children\u2019s cooking classes in the area,\u201d Weir said. \u201cWe thought she\u2019d be the perfect person to expand the conversations that were happening on Sunday and bring them online.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feedback thus far has been positive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at first we wondered\u2026 who is going to read this, but as it turns out there are a lot of people who are reading and commenting,\u201d Weir said. \u201cPeople are e-mailing us directly asking if they can contact Market Girl directly. She\u2019s someone who knows a lot about food and farmers markets and her work is accessible and applicable to a lot of different folks. This blog has been a great way to integrate the market-feel and to expand and mirror that every day online.\u201d<\/p>\n

North Park\u2019s weekly market, held Thursdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 32nd Street at North Park Way, has expanded into something beyond vendors and patrons by working with local schools. SD Weekly Markets, which took over running the farmers market approximately 18 months ago, wanted to make the market a little more family focused. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe realized a great way to do that would be to form partnerships with local schools. All of these families already buy fresh produce, but now, if they do their shopping at the farmers market we will make a quarterly donation to the local school of their choice,\u201d SD Weekly Markets representative Catt Fields White said.<\/p>\n

For each dollar spent at the farmers market, vendors will provide the purchaser with one ticket. Patrons can then drop those tickets into a bucket with a participating school\u2019s name on it. White said at the end of each quarter, five percent of the value of tickets dropped for each school will be donated to that school\u2019s Parent Teacher Association.<\/p>\n

Although the program is still fairly new, she said, approximately $600 has been donated thus far.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe schools have been great about getting the word out on this program,\u201d White said. \u201cEveryone seems very excited about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

District Three City Councilmember Todd Gloria, whose district includes North Park and Hillcrest, said that District Three markets are not just retail outlets, but community gathering points and social destinations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe farmers market movement has grown exponentially in popularity and success over the course of the last decade,\u201d Gloria said. \u201cI love that Mission Hills’ market is personal and somewhat small; Hillcrest’s is booming and attracts San Diegans from other neighborhoods; and others are similarly appropriate for their neighborhoods. Beyond these benefits is the fact that the markets bring local goods to San Diegans, which strengthens our connection to our food and reduces environmental impacts.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Margie M. Palmer | SDUN Reporter San Diego has some of the most exquisite weather in the country, so it\u2019s not surprising that area farmers have a harvest season that spans longer than most. The city\u2019s numerous weekly farmers markets provide these farmers opportunities to sell their wares and integrate with the community. Farmers […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":746,"featured_media":244983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Uptown farmers markets expanding to the community and giving back?","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/746"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}