Tonight's Market: CANCELLED

I am really sorry to say that tonight's market is cancelled.

With extreme weather in the forecast, including 5 hours of forecasted lightening & gusting high winds, market tents become kites, the metal frames make lightening rods... and the potential for people to get hurt is too great.

The last two weeks have been very challenging for our market, as quite a few tents have been broken by gusting winds, one of our volunteers was injured, and sales have been down due to poor attendance and last week's early market closures. There's no doubt about it. Attending, selling at and organizing an outdoor market is a very humbling experience.

In theory, farmers' markets are rain or shine... and I believe firmly that we need to honour our Canadian spirits, done our foul weather gear, and head up to the market to support our local farmers and artisans. But that idealistic view has to be tempered with a little realism... and the safety of our shoppers, vendors and volunteers just has to prevail.

As an organizer behind the scenes at a market, I have to say that cancelling a market is a very hard call to make... as many of these producers and artisans... and especially the farmers... rely on their sales at the farmers' markets to make a living. If the markets don't run, they don't see any sales. If the markets do run, but attendance is poor due to bad weather, then their sales are down AND the products they've harvested to bring to market are wasted.

Next week, I urge you to come out and support our vendors. They work so hard behind the scenes, getting their products ready for market and I would SO love to see them do well. This has been a tough month for many of them.