If you came to the blog because of an email I sent out, then you probably know me as the past director of the marketshare program at marketumbrella.org, or as the market manager at Crescent City Farmers Market, or as the White Boot Brigade staff or the Festivus, The Holiday Market For The Rest Of Us manager or the Go Fish on Film “producer.” Now, you’ll know me as an independent organizer, consulting with many market organizations throughout the US.
I have worn many hats in my 9.5 years with the wonderful marketumbrella.org. I enjoyed every minute of my work there and believe our relationship is just moving to a new definition.
But why?
It has been my belief for some time that we (the market community) need to continue to be as nimble and as brave as the generation of market founders that started this movement were, back in the 1970s-1990s. They did the impossible sometimes, the slightly difficult often, and the nutty more often than they would like to admit.
But what they did do was to build a wide foundation. They allowed a lot of new ideas to come together under one tent (pardon my market analogy) and kept innovating as needed. Some of those folks are still around running markets:
Ann Yonkers and Bernie Prince in DC
Donita Anderson in Cleveland OH
Leslie Schaller in Athens OH
Richard McCarthy in New Orleans LA
Chris Curtis in Seattle LA
Pompea Smith in Los Angeles CA
Just to name a few. I am sure there are many more that I am forgetting. Or don’t even know. Folks that are still around and deserve your appreciation and if you do get a chance to sit and pick their brain, take it.

But many others have moved on to other work or initiatives, leaving their markets in good hands they hoped. So this is our question: what is the legacy for those of us in the second and third generations of market organizers and market trainers?

I hope it’s to understand how markets sit within the larger alternative food system, within the larger public space movement, how they support newer markets and other initiatives. I hope it’s to continue to be brave and add difficult ideas to our markets and to welcome new people every week. I hope it’s to change the way we ALL live but with dignity and fun. And it better be to keep on honoring the farmer, the fisher, the harvester, the forager, the entrepreneur. They are our partner in this and yet are left out of the decision-making too often.
This is one of the reasons I am now on my own. I want to build this as a movement and to do that, we need to move even faster to connect to more ideas and to share more skills and to make some decisions about what we believe in, what we stand for in the public market movement. My old employer marketumbrella.org, will be there at the forefront with me, this I know. Farmers Market Coalition will be there too. Community Food Security Coalition, Food and Water Watch, National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture, the SAWGs, Federation of Southern Cooperatives, ALBA, Native American Farmers Associations, Food Secure Canada, Projects for Public Spaces, APA, APHA… again to name just a few of the many, will be there too.
Share your stories here, and call on me if I can help you.

Dar Wolnik
dar wolnik at gmail

My favorite place to be- among my peers. Well, if there was a market around us, that would be best...Sarah Blacklin Mkt Mgr Carrboro NC, Cliff Slade VA farmer, Bernie Prince Co-Director Fresh Farms DC, Darlene Wolnik, Mike McCreary Mkt Mgr Asheville NC, Peter Marks Director Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, Erin Kauffman Mkt Mgr Durham NC, Matt Kurlanski of Wallace Center, Stacy Miller Executive Director FMC.