Fair Grove Farmers' Market at the Mill

The Fair Grove Farmers’ Market Started out Great. We had the Growing With Kids Club for the 2nd year. The first week we handed out to the kids Trees that was donated by the Mo Dept of Forestry, and water containers, gloves, and hand tools to the kids, that the market purchased. We had over 250 kids signed up from all over, I would E mail them every week to keep them all updated. And I still e mail them and will do so through out the winter. Then every week Mr. & Mrs. Dowell would hand out plants and seeds and give them advise on how to raise there own garden. Mr. & Mrs. Dowell are Master Gardner’s and would donate there time and energy to our Market, and to the Kids. We handed out over 250 trees that was donated by The Mo Dept. of conservation, the first 2weeks of the Market. And than the week before Mothers day Pam with bunches of happiness donated 75 lilies for the kids to take home and plant with there mother for a mothers day gift. And then on June 4th the Kids all received a Free Hot dog and chips from our Market Café. And then I got over 200 coloring activity books from Mo on agriculture, and we had a coloring contest. They were all winners. I had a gift certificate from 2 restaurants, and we had lots of stuffed animals and they would draw for there prize. Shane Schoeller our 139Th state Represenative sent me 150 packets on The State Of Mo, The Kids loved these. Our local Business’s donated potato seed starts and seeds.

 Our Kids are very important to our Market they are the Future Farmers. We had a record breaking amount of Vendors this year. And then we bought some Cloth Agri Mo shopping bags, and each time a customer bought something from a vendor they would get a ticket and put there name and phone no on it for a weekly drawing to win a shopping bag. Customers loved this. We did this for four weeks. We also had weekly stories in the Buffalo reflex newspaper. I was interviewed on Kolr 10 a local T.V. Station about our Market. I was there at 6 am for a live interview. We also got our own website this year: www.FairGroveFarmersMarket.com. I keep the web site updated with news pictures and happenings about our Market. I also keep updated Ozarks first.com which is a local TV. station with a community calendar. 1 of our newest vendors said he learned a lot from our Market and plans on being back next year, He seen what the customers are wanting and what he needs to grow and produce per the customers needs. And than we had Fox 27 come out and do a live interview with our Vendors. Jack brooks our local honey man brought a live bee observatory to the Market which was a big hit. It showed the bee’s working. And then we had Cody Smith from the Mo dept of forestry, come and do a live demostration on how to properly trim and prune trees.

Our Market is very proud and was very Glad to receive the EBT and Debit card machine. It has really helped our Market. We also offer Gift Certificates for our market. And than in September we bought a big container of animal crackers and had a contest and let the Kids Guess how many was in the Jar, there prize the Jar of animal crackers. We also have a paint your own Gourd and Pumpkin day, were the kids sign up and then they get to paint there own gourd or pumpkin that is Oct 1st at the Market. We supplied all the pumpkins and gourds and paints ect.. This is my 5th year and the kids always look forward to this event. Please be sure and check out our website for information on The Berry Patch open house and Custommer Appreciation Days