Gordon Square Farmers' Market!

Gordon Square Farmers' Market is growing this year, again. We will be accepting 3 different types of Food Assistance at the Market in 2011. EBT, WIC and WRAAA's Senior Coupons.

This will allow us to better serve our community by improving access to healthy food. When we consume food that has traveled an average of 1500 miles and was picked 4-10 days before it even sees the grocery store shelf, we not only deplete natural resources (oil/fuel) but lose nutrients. At a farmers' market most produce was picked within 48 hours of  the time it arrives at the market, making it healthier for us and the planet.

Buying and eating locally grown food is not only healthy for you and our planet, it is putting money in the pockets of our farmers.  95% of the farmers at GSFM grow within Cuyahoga County. This means that whether you spend cash or EBT/WIC/WRAAA coupons, at least $0.95 of every dollar that you spend, at our market, will stay in the county. The other $0.05 will still be in NEO.  That's not what happens when you spend your money at grocery chains or buy produce grown California, Canada, Chile, Guatemala or anywhere else that isn't within 75 miles of your home. The farmers at our market grow within 75 miles of our market. That's a one tank trip, even with a beat up old truck!

From a June 2009 Time Magazine article, "Buying Local: How it Boosts the Local Economy" by Judith D. Schwartz:

The New Economics Foundation, an independent economic think tank based in London, compared what happens when people buy produce at a supermarket vs. a local farmer's market or community supported agriculture (CSA) program and found that twice the money stayed in the community when folks bought locally. "That means those purchases are twice as efficient in terms of keeping the local economy alive," says author and NEF researcher David Boyle.  Read more: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1903632,00.html#ixzz1H5WJ8vdJ

So this is not just about local food, but a local food economy. See, at Gordon Square Farmers' Market, we believe that when you make conscious decisions about where you spend your money, you are actually making a difference where you live.  Every time you buy from one of our vendors, that is incentive for them to grow not just more food, but their entire operation.

"If you're buying local and not at a chain or branch store, chances are that store is not making a huge profit," says David Morris, Vice President of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit economic research and development organization based in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. "That means more goes into input costs—supplies and upkeep, printing, advertising, paying employees—which puts that money right back in the community."