PLANNING STARTS FOR NEXT YEAR

The South Park Market on Wheels is going to be a great weekly bilingual market that is sustainable. We had our first meeting last night with a new group of excited folks who are coming together to start planning next years market now (an advisory board).

We haven’t even had our last market this year, but hats off is what we heard. When Luis Amado (a vendor and an advisory board member) polled folks about the market and it’s image and overall community impact, all votes came in with positive responses and very positive impact responses. The community is really coming together. It’s starting small but growing, and perhaps that is a good way to be sustainable.

One of the big comments have always been that we need more publicity. My budget has only been so much with grant money, so I am asking you one favor as a reader. Please if you will just make sure you tell at least one person about the market. Let’s spread the word in a grassroots fashion much like the entire market has been organized. And if you wanted to tell more than one, well, I sure wouldn’t be upset by that.

Suggestions we heard in the meeting last night were:

• Weekly in 2010
• Longer hours so folks who work on Saturdays can also shop
• more produce stands
• a monthly art market
• a cake walk and other community involved activities
• more music
• a flea market in a lot next door

We decided to also make sure that even if everyone in the room at the meeting can speak English, that we will continue to translate each meeting in both languages so that anyone who wishes to participate can feel comfortable. It makes our meetings a little longer but really speaks to what we are trying to accomplish in South Park.

Since our last market we have been asked by other markets how to get their diverse community involved in their own markets. Word on the street is that we are doing something right. The Market on Wheels meetings are the only real neighborhood meetings in South Park that are truly bilingual meetings that I know of. Hopefully that shows our community how dedicated we are to our entire community. And somewhere maybe in the mix some of us start learning a new language.

All in all a great new group of folks coming out to help facilitate that this market survives.