Downtown Farmers’ Market offers up bounty of produce

By Herald on July 7, 2021.

Members of Taber’s Oaklane Colony were serving up the fresh veggies at the opening day of the Downtown Farmers Market on Wednesday. Herald photo by Tim Kalinowski

Tim Kalinowski – Lethbridge Herald

Lethbridge residents enjoyed the first Downtown Farmers’ Market of the summer on Wednesday.

Creating a feast for the eyes, the stalls lined with fresh produce and locally sourced goods of all kinds enticed many to come out under sunny skies to fill their custom orange Downtown Lethbridge cloth bags (provided free of charge by the organizers) with the early bounty of July.

“It’s a very exciting day,” said Downtown BRZ marketing co-ordinator Emily Chong. “We are so excited to have it back this year, and expanded. After a hard year of COVID, I think people are just excited to get out here.”

For the second year in a row the Downtown Farmers’ Market, which takes place every Wednesday through Sept. 15 between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., will be located at the intersection of 5th Street South and 2nd Avenue South across from Galt Gardens due to construction going on in the 3rd Avenue South area.

Aylla Bott, who works as an event specialist at Exhibition Park for the Downtown Farmers’ Market, said the market is looking forward to returning to its usual location next year after the Festival Square project is completed. In the meantime, she hoped many would come down and check out what the market has to offer all through the summer.

“The benefit is being able to bring our local producers back into the community at another time of the week,” she said. “We, of course, have our Saturday market at Exhibition Park every week until October. But this one just brings everything downtown where it’s a bit closer and more accessible with the bus stops and everything than trying to travel across the city. And it also brings a couple of different vendors (out). There are some vendors who are here that aren’t at our Saturday market and vice versa.

“It gives you a bit of variety,” Bott added, “but still gives you all those local and handmade goods everybody likes about the Farmers’ Market.”

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