How Students, Volunteers, And A Whole Lot Of Herbs Helped Create The PS 295 Farmers Market
Every Thursday afternoon, the PS 295 Farmers Market sets up near the school’s playground on 19th Street between 6th and 7th Avenues, and right now in the height of summer, you’ll find heirloom tomatoes, corn on the cob, juicy peaches — direct from a farm in New Jersey, or right from the school’s own garden, and all for a great price.
Getting the market to this point was a group effort that started several years ago, explains parent Dan Janzen. PS 295 has had an active gardening program for some time, planting gardens in their own courtyard and around the neighborhood — you’ll find the school’s work at Detective Joseph Mayrose Park, the Prospect Hill Senior Services Center, and 6/15 Green. They’re also dedicated to healthy eating and wellness in general, participating in the Garden to School Café program and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s GreenBridge program, and they receive support from Slow Food USA, Grow to Learn, and other organizations.
“Starting our own farmers market seemed like the natural next step,” says Dan.
Chancellor Dennis Walcott visiting the school’s garden, via PS 295
In the spring of 2012, the school received a Community Builder grant from the Park Slope Civic Council, “which provided essential seed money (pun intended) to get our operations off the ground,” Dan says. “We also visited the PS 11 Farm Market in Chelsea to get ideas and inspiration — one of the coolest things we saw there was that they could accept WIC and EBT payments. Given that one of our main goals is to make fresh produce more widely available, we made a commitment to accept these payments as well.”
Over the summer last year, they bought tents, tables, scales, a refrigerator, a chest freezer, and other equipment, and they launched the market soon after the beginning of school in September. During the year, they also received training from Just Food, with whom they’re affiliated, through their City Farms Market program.
“The market remains a work in progress, but part of the fun (and much of the craziness) has been making it up as we go along, and addressing each new challenge and opportunity as it comes up,” Dan says. “For example, the WIC/EBT thing has been a lot more complicated to set up than we’d imagined, but we’re almost ready at last.”
The market is managed by a committee of four people, Dan explains, including, “the tireless Susan Weseen, our school’s library sciences teacher, who spearheads all things green at PS 295, and three parents — along with a crack team of about 10 third graders who join us on market days to run the till and provide customer service.”
In addition, there are about 20 volunteers who help out in various ways, from picking up the food from their suppliers, to staffing the market and delivering each week’s surplus food to the Prospect Hill Senior Services Center for them to make use of. They also distribute some leftovers to home chefs in the community to make into sauces, cookies, and other good things, and freeze them to sell at PTA events throughout the year. Not to mention those handy folks who helped build their shed, which has made life a lot easier for everyone on market day — they used to have to haul tents, tables, and more from spots inside the school, but now the shed stores all of that right next to where they set up.
“We do our best to keep things organized and operating smoothly, but it wouldn’t be possible without the parent volunteers who’ve stepped forward from the school community,” Dan says.
Of course, they couldn’t do any of it without fresh fruits and vegetables, either. Their main partner is Hector Perez, who operates Jersey Farm Produce, a small farm in Milford, New Jersey.
“He’s the source of most of our fruit and vegetables, and an important part of our operations,” Dan says. “He has also helped us with our gardening program from the beginning, giving us seeds, seedlings, and lots of advice and encouragement.”
The original plan was to follow PS 11’s lead and get their produce from a CSA, but that would have meant paying upfront and being locked into a certain quantity all season long, as well as the CSA’s season, which often starts just as the school year ends. Looking for more flexibility, they chose Hector so they can decide each week what to order and pay as they go.
“Needless to say, we love Hector!” Dan adds. “He’s also a really sweet guy.”
Additionally, Lancaster Farm Fresh Cooperative, a non-profit organic farmers cooperative in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, supplies their dairy, meat, and items like jam, honey, and maple syrup.
“Most importantly, we offer food from the school gardens that our students cultivate and maintain, especially as the summer progresses and more things are ready for harvest,” Dan says.
They grow all kinds of herbs, including hyssop, Thai basil, Genovese basil, lemon verbena, cilantro, orange mint, sage, rosemary, tarragon, stevia, lemon balm, spearmint, bay leaves, lovage, thyme and a couple of mystery herbs that “lost their markers sometime in June but are growing like crazy,” Dan notes. They’re also producing cucumbers, heirloom tomatoes, arugula, Swiss chard, celery, lettuce, tons of different kinds of hot peppers, okra and beans grown from seed saved and donated from a neighbor’s garden, tomatillos, figs, raspberries, carrots, mesclun, and mustard greens.
“And that’s just what’s growing now — it’s a whole different array in the spring and fall.”
Photo via PS 295
Because the market is at the school, kids are naturally involved in the process. Dan says that the students have always been a key part of the vision for the market.
“In addition to learning more about the food supply chain, we want them to get comfortable helping to run a small business — everything from customer service and making change to understanding how budgeting and marketing work.”
During the first year, most of the students’ contribution has come in working at the market itself, and they’re involved with the committee in deciding what to order from their suppliers, but the kids’ involvement will keep expanding during the rest of the week in the months ahead.
“So much of our attention so far has been focused on just getting the thing up and running, but now that we’ve got most of it worked out, we’ll have more opportunities to give them new roles to play,” Dan says.
It’s a lot of work to organize, pick up orders, and set up, but the payoff of seeing customers — who include families and teachers from the school as well as a growing number of neighbors from the community — helps everyone appreciate what they’re working on.
“The market itself is really the fun part that makes all the rest of the work worthwhile!” Dan says. “It’s just a nice way to spend a couple of hours chatting with people, watching our stock get smaller and smaller, and brainstorming about ways to improve our operations and new ideas to try out.”
It can be tough, but Dan says that schools that are thinking about starting their own markets shouldn’t get overwhelmed.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day!” he says. “Sometimes the list of things to do seems unbearably long and stubborn, and there’s always something you meant to do last week but still don’t know when you’ll get to. Don’t fret about making everything perfect as soon as possible; focus on where you want to be in a year, and keep chipping away at that list. In the meantime, focus on the basics: every week that you put something on the counter and someone buys it, that’s a win for the market. At the end of the day, if you’re helping people put better food in their mouths (and learn about how it gets there), that’s what really matters.”
In some ways, the market is still in its early stages, and Dan is confident that as it grows, it will become a permanent neighborhood fixture.
“We’ve seen our first year as very much the raw beginning of something that will last for years and years,” he says. “Now that we almost know what we’re doing, and we’re starting to draw customers from around the neighborhood, the work we’ve put in can really begin to pay off for our community. We feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface of what’s possible.”
Some plans in the works include live cooking demos for the fall, gathering more recipes for featured ingredients, and exploring more community partnerships.
“We’re already talking with several restaurants in the area about incorporating our food into their menus, which is pretty exciting,” Dan says. “We fantasize about coming back to visit the market a decade from now and seeing new faces behind the counter, more food than ever in our baskets, and crowds of happy shoppers filling their bags.”
The PS 295 Farmers Market (19th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues) runs every Thursday from 2:30-4:30pm. If you’re a parent at the school and you’d like to get involved, or if you have any questions, stop by the market or contact market@ps295.org for more information. And be sure to follow them on Facebook for weekly updates!
