Skip to content

More reasons to market

Enjoy local fruit and produce – and maybe a resort getaway.
Farmers Market
Fresh produce: Samrana Abid

Enjoy local fruit and produce – and maybe a resort getaway.

Until the end of the month, the BC Association of Farmers’ Markets, which includes the Shuswap Farm & Craft Market in Salmon Arm, plus Blind Bay Farmers’ Market, Chase Farm & Craft Market and Sorrento Village Farmers’ Market, is offering a Meet My Market promotion.

Residents are invited to bring a friend to their favourite farmers’ market this month, fill out a ballot and enter to win a three-night getaway for two to Sparkling Hill Resort on the outskirts of Vernon.

Gene Bailey, manager of the Shuswap farmers’ market, is all for the idea.

“Definitely, it’s getting people who don’t normally attend markets to come down and see what’s available… Then they can reap the benefits of local fruit and produce,” he says.

The ballots will be under the tent set up in the middle of the market in Salmon Arm. The market runs Tuesdays and Fridays from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Rainbow Glass parking lot behind Centenoka Park Mall.

Also participating in Salmon Arm is the Shuswap Family Resource Centre.

Executive director Patti Thurston says the resource centre is in its second year of a three-year pilot program, where families and seniors can apply to take part.

Participants receive coupons worth $15 each week  to shop at the farmers’ market.

She said there’s a waitlist, as the people who were on the program last year came back and applied this year, plus there are new people applying all the time.

“It’s very, very, very popular, she said.”

Along with bringing a friend to the market and filling out a ballot, you’re also invited to take a photo at your favourite farmers’ market and post it on social media, tagging @bcfarmersmarket and adding #MeetMyMarket to enter. If you’re not on Instagram or Twitter, you can enter via Facebook on the BC Association of Farmers’ Markets page at: www.facebook.com/BCAFM.

All entries will be automatically entered to win one of two grand prizes – the three-night getaway plus wine touring for two to the resort. Social media entrants will also be eligible to win one of the weekly random prize draws for $50 to spend at the farmers’ market of their choice.

Across the province, more than 125 farmers’ markets offer an abundance of locally grown food and locally made goods, along with community fun including live music, children’s activities, cooking classes, artisan workshops and a place for neighbourhoods to come together.

 

 



Martha Wickett

About the Author: Martha Wickett

came to Salmon Arm in May of 2004 to work at the Observer. I was looking for a change from the hustle and bustle of the Lower Mainland, where I had spent more than a decade working in community newspapers.
Read more