- By Dan Veaner
- Around Town
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There will be no Lansing Farmer's Market this summer. After four years of operation the market has petered out. Linda VanApeldoorn, owner of Take Your Pick Flower Farm, says there are no plans to hold the market on a limited basis, but notes that some of the vendors will participate at a farmer's market at the Triphammer Marketplace Friday mornings in the Village of Lansing."We did not have enough vendors willing to attend on a weekly basis to continue," says VanApeldoorn. She has been a regular vendor since the market was established four years ago. "We had a commitment from only 5 vendors who were willing to attend the market on a weekly basis for the entire season."
The market first ran on July 10, 2009. Then Councilwoman Connie Wilcox had worked behind the scenes for three years to bring a farmer's market to Lansing. She gathered a committee of local farmers with the modest goal of attracting five to seven vendors to the Town Hall parking lot on Saturday mornings. 19 signed up.
At its peak the farmer's market attracted more than 20 vendors. The rules were simple: goods for sale had to be grown or made locally. Vendors set up tents in front of the Town Hall, and the market enhanced the Saturday morning lineup of ball games and chicken barbecues.
On that first day what was left of the parking lot was jammed, and cars lined Auburn Road in front of the library and Town Hall. A chicken barbecue raised money to assemble the historic log cabin now in the entrance of Myers Park. And Myers Park was celebrating its 50th birthday.
This year participants were hard put to find a 'market manager'. Those duties were divided between a few of the regular vendors at a February meeting. VanApeldoorn says there just weren't enough vendors who would commit to participate. The season would have run from June 15 through the middle of October.
"We felt that we needed a minimum of 12 weekly, full season vendors to continue the market," she says. "15 to 20 would have been preferred."
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