Estevan residents always look forward to spring for many reasons, and one of them is the Estevan Farmers’ Market sales.
This year’s farmers’ market is just around the corner, and Patricia Thompson, who manages the markets, said they are going to have a good selection of vendors with everything from homemade crafts to baked goods.
Thompson is also looking forward to the outdoor markets that will allow people access to freshly grown produce straight from some local farms.
“We have four indoor sales planned and we start April 14, with other market days being April 21, April 28 and May 5,” said Thompson.
All four are inside the Estevan Shoppers Mall and will start at 9:30 a.m.
“We then start our outdoor sales on May 12 in the mall parking a lot and we continue that all the way from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday till October on Thanksgiving weekend,” she added.
Thompson noted that the deadline to apply for a vendors’ table is March 14 and anyone interested should contact her.
The number of vendors last year was very good, but Thompson isn’t 100 per cent sure how many vendors will be present this year. A few days after March 14, when people are approved to be a merchant at the market, is when Thompson will know how many vendors could be this year.
She he hopes it will be more than last year.
“We just started accepting vendor applications and once all those are counted, we will go from there,” said Thompson. “Every year we get between 20 to 30 vendors and we are expecting this year to not be any different. Of course I always aim to get to our maximum amount of vendors.”
Thompson noted that there will be some newer vendors and some new products at this year’s markets.
“We also have people that do bath salts and sell those sorts of things. I guess you could put them in the healing category. We always have such a diverse selection of vendors at our events and during the summer people will be able to by farm fresh food,” said Thompson.
“We are going to have a lot of home crafters, knitters and we have a lot of skilled people who have repurposed wood into various rustic decorations,” she added.
Thompson noted that the farmers’ market is a non-profit group and they consider donating any remaining money to charity.
“We will look at the end of the year to see how much money we have left over in terms of donating to charitable groups,” said Thompson.
“We had a bit of surplus last year and some years prior we had a bit left over as well, and ever since then we have thought of ways to use that money to put it back into the community for the people of Estevan because it is them that always come out to our markets,” she added.
