Farmers Market

on March 01, 2011 by Walt Dilg

 Farmers Market

            About one year ago, a group of local Bird Rock moms came to me to see if the church would be willing to work with them to bring a Farmers Market to our side of town.  They wanted to accomplish three goals they said.  The first goal was to provide additional funding through the Parents Committee to our Bird Rock Elementary School for programs that have become diminished over the recent years, like music, physical education, and art.  The second goal was to provide healthy food stuffs and flowers that would benefit area farmers and be convenient to local residents through a boutique open-air market.  The third goal was to create a weekly center for the neighborhood, a place where families could gather, build relationships, relax together, catch up from the workweek and plan for the weekend.  The idea appealed to me, since helping fund our neighborhood school, becoming more “green,” and strengthening families while building community are all good things.  So I told them to see what they could develop and we’d see how we could lend a hand. 

             Much work has been done by these moms over the past 12 months, and they are now at the point of presenting their concept to the governmental bodies that would grant them the permits to do it.  Their basic proposal is to stage a Farmers Market on Mira Monte, west of La Jolla Blvd., and around the bend onto La Jolla Hermosa, much of which is in front of our church property.  It would occur weekly on Fridays, from 2:30 pm to 7:00 pm.  The Market would be run by a Management Company that has successfully run farmers markets like the moms envision (think Little Italy’s farmers market).  Proceeds from the market would go to the Parents Committee for the school’s benefit.  The church would be a good neighbor to this effort by providing some ancillary support such as use of bathrooms, electricity, and parking lots.  We would have our costs reimbursed by the market and would have a few Fridays when the market would not meet due to our programmatic needs.      

 Now, why should the church support the moms and help out on this project? 

A quick answer is we share their goals: we want to help our local kids; we affirm grow local – buy local; we want to better weave the fabric of our community.  At very little disruption to our congregation and to our immediate neighborhood, we can respond to a felt need and articulated hope in our extended neighborhood – this is what caring and missional minded churches do, what dynamic and growing churches do – they reach out and do, as is needed in their area.  Additionally, we will have the benefit of becoming a gathering place of the neighborhood, raising our visibility in the community and further exposing our neighbors to our campus and congregation.  The more people know about LJ UMC, feel comfortable on our campus, and meet our friendly and helpful members, the more likely they will think of LJ UMC when they are in need of religious services. 

             Our Board of Trustees have met with the moms group and potential market manager and talked through the many issues and concerns of staging the market alongside our property.  We are convinced that a workable arrangement can be reached to stage the market, minimize the disruption to the immediate neighborhood, and maintain the church’s pattern of congregational life.  An agreement is being drafted between the Farmers Market and the church and will be presented to the Church Council at our March meeting.   If the farmers market gets approval and permits from the necessary public agencies, then this proposed agreement will govern the relationship of the market to us, its largest neighbor.   I will keep you posted as to further developments.