Just one more Tuesday before we wrap up the weekday markets
for the year. We’ll be open from 4 to 6 pm. this Tuesday. Volunteers from Central
United Methodist Church will serve up ham ‘n’ beans with cornbread, cake and a
drink for $5. Ham ‘n’ bean refills for $3. All proceeds support the market’s WIC
program (which has been temporarily suspended while we seek more funding). Scott
Eastman will perform on the market stage. Even though it’s our last weekday
market of the year, you’ll still find honey, baked goods, beautiful mums,
handcrafted soaps and loads of fresh local produce. Extension will do a market
fresh demo with samples. Put it on your calendar. We would like to end the
weekday markets with a full house!
We have some fun music this week! The TriStatesmen Chorus and the FOG Quartet play from 9 to 10 Saturday. The Granny Chicks take the market stage from 10 to noon.
Cooking for a Cause is once again staffed by
volunteers from the Methodist church and will benefit the WIC program. Biscuits
and gravy, scrambled eggs, sausages, hashbrown casserole and juice or coffee is
$6 and served till 11.
Another fun activity for the opening day of Winter Market
(October 13) is our annual Fall Foos Fotos. Bob Foos will take portraits from
9:30 to 11:30. Organize your family, friends and pets or just
sit for your own portrait among the market’s mums and pumpkins overlooking the
park commons just west of the market (south of the kitchen). Two packages are
available for $15 each (8 wallets with two 4x5s or 8 wallets with one 5x7). Add
an 8x10 to either package for a total cost of $20. You can also order extra
wallets, 4x5s and 5x7s in case you want to share the photos with family and
friends.
And while you’ve got your calendar out, please note that Clickety
Clack – We’re Reading Down the Track has been rescheduled this month (we didn’t
want to compete with the Maple Leaf Parade). It will be Saturday, October 27th,
from 9 to noon. Free reservations are available on Eventbrite.com. We usually
have extra seats, especially on the early runs, but having reservations will
keep you from waiting. This month, the book we’re reading is Steam Train, Dream
Train. A fun story about a train full of animals, we’d sure love to have some
of those animals to show during the ride. If you have a stuffed monkey,
kangaroo, polar bear, penguin, giraffe, elephant, rabbit, camel, turtle,
dinosaur, or mouse that you wouldn’t mind several hundred children loving on,
let us know.
The streetcar leaves every twenty minutes from the station
just west of the market. A craft and an operating model train will also be at
the station.
We are so fortunate that individuals and organizations have
stepped up to help us buy the books we use for Clickety Clack. Three cheers for
the Friends of the Library who stepped up in a big way. We put a book on each
bench so children can read along – that means for each month we buy 24 books (22
benches, plus one extra for the reader and one to put in the library). We could
use two more sponsors to close out the year (at about $100 each). Next year we’ll
re-use most of our books and so expenses will be reduced.
A friend reminded me last week that I had once said the
market is meant to be a gathering place. That is an essential part of building
community, one of the market’s major goals. A study came out just this week indicating
that some neighborhoods, regardless of economic status, consistently produced more
successful children than others. A community that produces successful children
is the kind of community I want to live in, don’t you? I think a children’s literacy event like
Clickety Clack has a role to play in that. As does the market. Come join us in
building community.