Feeding The Community During A Pandemic

Pat Simon speaks with a local farmers market that's opening back up and learned how they hope to help feed people in the community.

Working to help feed people in the community.

>> pat simon: marilyn, thank you so much for joining us today.

>> i'm glad to be here.

Thank you.

>> pat simon: you bet.

You have really changed the look of the market to help protect your customers and employees.

What some of the major changes we will see at greene street market?

>> well, you will see spaced out tents with a lot of room between them.

A lot of -- only farmers and food vendors will be there.

We have three different ways you can get your food from the market.

One is on our facebook page and on our website, there's a list of all the vendors who will be there and their contact information.

So you can call them directly, order from them.

They'll is your order ready.

And we'll have volunteers who will come to your car, take your order, bring your order to you.

And you drive off.

Don't get out of your car.

The other way is you can -- if w what you want to order you can drive up and a volunteer will come ask you what you want.

And get your things that way.

We are going to have people come into the market on a limited basis, following cdc guidelines and rules with the six feet distance between people.

We recommend masks.

And patience.

>> pat simon: and patience.

Absolutely.

Whole different way of going to a farmers market.

That's for sure.

Let's talk about what some of the farmers are actually telling you, any concerns regarding food supply or prices these days?

>> no, i think not.

Everybody of course all the farmers' experiences have been individual.

But we've had a lot of farmers whose businesses have increased exponentially during this time.

I think due to food safety concerns.

I think that when you buy locally you buy from people you know.

Your confidence in the safety of that food is much higher than when you -- the food has come from somewhere and some person that you don't know.

So i think there are a lot of farmers who have seen a huge increase in their business simply because people's concerns for their safety.

The other concern, of course, is very community-spirited, that people all of a sudden see that they really do need to support their local farmers and vendors.

And we see that a lot at our store where people are coming to say, i'm going to order from this vendor because they are local.

And i think that's a wonderful -- of course, we love that.

That's a great response.

>> pat simon: absolutely.

For those who are ready and waiting to get out to the market again, talk about the selection, what you have available for the customers this year.

>> we are a local producer only market.

So that the farmers who sell you their product have grown that product.

So ours are all products that are in season at this time.

So right now you'll find strawberries and onions and greens and some potatoes, broccoli, some cool weather crops.

As the summer goes on, you will find a lot of different crops.

We have things only in season and people learn to eat things when they're in season.

>> pat simon: i want to go over a couple things before i let you g this morning.

Dealing with tastings.

That's one thing that the pandemic is kind of changing up this year because you're not going to allow for tastings, right?

>> no tastings at all.

We -- customers are not going to be allowed to touch the product.

The farmer will -- you will point to what you want.

The farmer will bag it up and exchange will take place through the bag.

But not through tastings.

We are not going to -- this year we aren't -- at least for the month of may, i'm not going to allow pets in the market.

Just to decrease the confusion and the number of living things that are there.

>> pat simon: what about service animals?

>> oh, service animal, certainly.

Not -- but not pets.

We do allow dogs and we would encourage people to shop like one person per family.

You know?

If you can do that, if you can cocome in, shop, take it home if your family and not bring your whole -- during this time we would like it to be less of a social market.

We won't have live music.

But we will have music.

>> pat simon: that's good.

>> you know, i think we just -- we have -- the virus is here.

We need to learn ways we can safely interact with each other and in community.

But safely.

>> pat simon: no better way to do that than at farmers market.

Marilyn evans, we wish you all the best with greene street