Farmers Christmas Market returns

By John Watson Local Journalism initiative Reporter

The Christmas market hosted by the Strathmore Farmers Market was a resounding success, according to market manager Tracy Yochim. 

After having to cancel the previous year’s event, she suspected much of the community was eager to come out and see what local vendors had to offer, particularly with Christmas around the corner.

“It was very, very busy from start to pretty much finish … even though we had to be smaller this year, obviously again because of COVID-19, usually I have over 100 vendors, we (still) had about 70 today. It was fantastic,” said Yochim.

She added the dramatic drop in the number of vendors at the market was due to spacing restrictions in order to follow provincial COVID-19 guidelines.

Yochim said though she was disappointed to have to turn some vendors away, hosting 70 is much better than not hosting an event at all.

“It was kind of sad, so I was really happy that we could run it this year. There were still shoppers right until the bitter end. It’s really nice to shop local and support these people because they work hard,” she explained. “Even if we can run like this, worst case scenario if we’re still in this situation next year, 70 (vendors) is still a big number. It’s still a big market, it’s still a lot of variety for the customers. If we can do that, I’d be happy for sure.”

Something new to the market this year was a sort of market passport. As there were several other markets operating throughout Strathmore on Nov. 27, market-goers had an opportunity to engage a bit more with each event and after attending each market in town, they could enter their passport to win.

“This year, we, along with the town and a few other markets, we did a passport. All the markets that were in town today, we did a passport and whatever market (people) ended up at last, they would enter into a draw for some really nice prizes,” explained Yochim.

At the conclusion of the farmers market, two names were drawn from a box to determine localized winners.

Going forward, Yochim added she hopes to see health restrictions not have to be in place by this time next year, which would allow for more vendors to come out. Further, the markets are simply an opportunity for the community to be out and about.

“For the vendors, they do lots of markets like this – this is their livelihood. This is how they make money for their families. It’s important that we do these kinds of things,” she said.

“It’s good socially just for people to get out and visit and have some fun, even though we can’t do it as normal. This was a lot of fun … I think people had a good time and it’s good economically for the vendors.”

The next event from the Farmers Market is looking to be the Valentine’s market, which is still a relatively new event within the community.