From incubating a new food business run by Syrian refugees to making products and produce more accessible through a special currency that can be exchanged for food, the team at the Peterborough Regional Farmers’ Market (PRFM) has been busy building new partnerships through the long winter months at their indoor location at Peterborough Square.
With free space donated by the PRFM to help incubate their new business, a group of Syrian refugees — who have formed the Newcomer Kitchen to sell spinach pies, smoky baba ghanoush, and their very popular zaatar bread — say joining the market has been life-changing.
Reem Ali, a community development worker with the New Canadians Centre, has provided support to the Newcomer Kitchen group since they started skills training with the Nourish Project in November 2017. The project is a collaboration between many partners, including the New Canadians Centre, YWCA Peterborough Haliburton, and, Peterborough Public Health.
Last fall, four women in the program decided to work together on the market project, quickly recognizing the benefits provided by the PRFM environment. A few short months after joining the market in December, the women are thriving.
“It has been an enriching experience for these women,” Ali explains. “They have had a chance to put all of their new learning into practice in a supportive, welcoming, low-pressure environment with a steady flow of customers.”
Ali says the women have developed a great rapport with clients and they are already able to anticipate how much food needs to be prepared each week when they meet at a kitchen provided, for free, at the Jewish Community Centre. The regular schedule of the PRFM also lets the women manage their busy lives, including raising their families and keeping up to date with their English language classes.
VIDEO: The Peterborough Regional Farmers’ Market
“Community support is key and the market is their community,” Ali says. “Relationships are being developed with other vendors and, like a true incubator experience, support and encouragement is always available.”
Ali says the women have new skills and new confidence, and now they have enough experience to make decisions on the spot about their business. They’re even learning from observing other vendors when it comes to marketing.
“The women say they are no longer the same people — in a good way,” Ali notes.
Neil Hannam, chair of the Peterborough Regional Farmers’ Network, says he is proud of how this partnership has blossomed.
“We wanted to help newcomers incubate a business model and develop skills for success in their new home as another way to build our community,” he explains. “Now these women are gaining confidence every week while also strengthening our family of vendors.”
While PRFM is supporting the Newcomer Kitchen project through a donation of space and lots of encouragement, all PRFM vendors are also benefitting from another partnership: the Nourish Market Dollars project.
Now run as a year-round initiative, the Nourish Market Dollars program provides special currency that can be exchanged for produce at the market — making healthy, organic, local produce and products more accessible.
Joëlle Favreau works with the Nourish Project and she notes that, while addressing food inequities is at the heart of all their work, their programming is grounded in the premise that dignity of access is key.
So, when participants complete workshops or come to events, they are gifted Nourish Market Dollars.
The Nourish Market Dollars can be spent at different locations, including at the Peterborough Regional Farmers’ Market, providing a dignified way for local people to access healthy food.
“Our workshops and activities are open to all,” Favreau says. “Our market dollars are derived from this approach and they help us support people of all income brackets with greater connections to good local food and amazing local producers.”
Favreau notes that, in addition to receiving Nourish Market Dollars at workshops, people can also buy the special currency. It’s also becoming popular with people who purchase the currency to give as gifts.
The Nourish Project also offers cooking classes, canning workshops and they offer a Market Meal program where a facilitator helps to shop, prepare, and eat a meal prepared with items found at the market.
“We’re growing access to local healthy food and local food is at the centre of this focus,” Favreau says. “We’re using food as an avenue to bring people together.”
With such a focus on building these community partnerships, the PRFM is continuing to build on its mission to build relationships with the city, rural counties, and the community, and to promote the economic, social and cultural value of agriculture within the region — all while increasing access to local food that all members of the community can trust.
“Our goal is to build community around food, and Nourish Dollars open doors for more people in the community to access food that they know is grown by local farmers,” Hannam says. “This program also puts money back into local farms and adds value to the successes of our vendors. We are excited to join the Peterborough Wednesday Farmers’ Market and the Lakefield Farmers’ Market in supporting Nourish Dollars.”
Sixty per cent of PRFM vendors are primary producers who have gone through a third-party inspection process to verify they grow 100 per cent of what they sell, with the remaining 40 per cent including bakers, artists, community groups, and food vendors like the Newcomer Kitchen.
The Peterborough Regional Farmers’ Market runs at its winter location in Peterborough Square at 340 George Street North in downtown Peterborough from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Saturday until April. The market is located in the lower south level by Princess Gardens.
You can easily access the market from the mall’s underground parking; simply take the Galaxy Cinema elevator or stairs and exit at the first level into the mall. You can also enter from lower Charlotte Street by Princess Gardens, or at the food court; take the escalator downstairs and head to the south end of the lower mall. The farmers’ market is well marked from all of the mall entrances.
For more information, visit www.ptboregionalfarmersmarket.org.
