VENICE FARMERS MARKET

Farming > Farmers

Dining al fresco at Marie Laforge and Ricardo Ruggiero’s home on a summer evening in 2011, the conversation turned to why we had to drive so far from Englewood to attend a local farmers market. In a matter of weeks, the dialogue evolved quickly to a plan to begin a farmers market in Englewood. Meetings took place, a location was secured, folks fanned out to local markets to recruit vendors, a site plan was laid out, the Friends of Sarasota County Parks, our non-profit parent adopted us, an operations team was established, and Sarasota County approved our permit to begin. We had an entire budget of only $1,000.00 to get started. Yikes!

Fast forward to November 3, 2011. Marie and Ricardo, who own the locally famous Mango Bistro, Lee Perron, Mike Hutchinson and Don Musilli launched the Englewood Farmers Market. The opening day was nerve wracking, as we had no idea if anyone would come to shop with our modest size market of seventeen vendors. However, 1,500 showed up to share the love that very first day and the vendors were surprised at the level of support that came from the Englewood community on day one. Ninety days later, we had 30 vendors and 3,000 per week in attendance. We ended our first season with 43 vendors and a total attendance of 70,000. And we made our first donations back to the community.

We just completed our eighth season for the EFM with 60 vendors and 185,000 in attendance. During the high season, we now experience 8,000 per week shopping at our market. An economic impact study performed by Dr. Kluson with the University of Florida concluded that the market was a four million dollar plus financial engine that was creating a renaissance in historic downtown Englewood.

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