Amy Smith's thoughtful feature "Despite Fires and Covid, The Tenderloin Farmers Market Endures," published by The Bold Italic this week, highlights the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfires on our market and its farmers:
“'When it all started, no one knew what to expect, so we just plowed ahead like it was a normal year,' owner of Two Dog Farm Mark Bartle says of the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“But Bartle, who also operates a stand at the Heart of the City Farmers’ Market in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, says it quickly became clear that closures of surrounding offices meant no workers to shop at the midweek market, and overall, a slew of regulations would change the way they did their business.
"Throughout the pandemic, vendors like Bartle at the farmers market — open Wednesday and Saturday — have served as an essential service to a neighborhood that’s mainly low-income residents without access to a supermarket offering a slew of innovative programs to help those in need. This is true even as farmers have struggled through a combination of the pandemic and California’s devastating wildfire season.
“'Heart of the City Farmers’ Market has served this community for 40 years and for the first time, we fear for the survival of this market,' says Kate Creps, Heart of the City’s executive director. 'We’ve closed all nonessential programs to narrow our focus to providing food relief for a devastated neighborhood that lacks a supermarket and has limited access to fresh foods during this pandemic.'”
Read more here: https://thebolditalic.com/inside-the-tenderloin-farmers-market-where-vendors-suffered-a-hard-year-but-continued-serving-55ac1ebfe00c