I've been meaning to tell you...

Yeon and I have been volunteering this season on the marketing committee for the West Frederick Farmer's Market. Let me explain from my perspective how all of this started.

Last summer, Yeon had been volunteering heavily at the Cakes for Cause booth at the market. One day she shared with me that she really wanted to do something to help the farmers at the market because they all work so hard and have such beautiful produce. She wanted to start a blog. I had a blog about global warming (seriously- I had been writing in it almost every day for a a year and a half) so she knew I would be good for the writing part. I hesitated at first because I was already up to my eyeballs in alligators, but Yeon is hard to say no to. So we started Grown in Frederick.

This year Yeon casually mentioned that she went to a marketing meeting for the West Frederick Farmer's Market. I convinced her that I should be on the marketing committee too, and so there we were, meeting with the vendors from So Very Special, Summer Creek Farm, and Cakes for Cause. We decided to do a bunch of things this summer; to have festivals (May 6 and July 11), to do a "Passport to Freshness" where people could draw prizes, and to do a live radio broadcast from the market (coming up on July 11). We also decided to print posters and create a website under the name Frederick Farm Fresh.

I think our marketing efforts have been really successful. None of our events have been perfect so far but we have learned a lot from them for the future.

The market today had as many people at it as we normally get in the middle of the summer when the corn comes in. I realized today that we need to add more vendors. I think we can support them. I just sent one potential new vendor over to the market manager that I am excited about.

I've got a PSA to record next week with Key 103 (thanks Key and Nassau Broadcasting!). I plan to promote all of the Farmer's Markets in Frederick County though promotion of the website. What else should I say? I have 40 seconds. We will also be doing promotions of the upcoming festival July 11 and the live broadcast with Key 103 on that day. Yeon has worked very hard to put the Frederick Farm Fresh site together and has been keeping it updated. She also organized the band for the first festival, the Passport to Freshness, and I can't even remember what all else. We've been keeping busy!

Oh, and please vote for your favorite farmer's market. It takes a minute. So far there are two votes: mine and someone else's. Probably Yeon's.

Shannon