Webb City Sentinel market column - Wednesday 12-23-2020

I was once blessed with a wonderful pastor who always based his sermons on the trinity. That is to say, each sermon had three parts, and unfortunately by the time he finished the third part, I would usually have forgotten the first two parts. So I want to warn you ahead of time, this column is going to have three parts, but luckily for you, each part can be reviewed as needed if your attention span is as short as mine.

First, our market this week is the Christmas Eve Market! On Thursday, we will be open from 11 to 1 in the pavilion. Plan on a quick frosty holiday shopping trip to pick up what you need for Christmas and for the week. Braker Berry Farm, Fairhaven, Harmony Hill, and OakWoods will be there with fresh local produce. Fairhaven will also have treats for the table and the stocking – fresh picked out pecans, pecan brittle, peanut brittle, and chocolate peanut butter balls. Look for Harmony Hill’s baked goods, Clear Water Shrimp’s fresh shrimp for your holiday table, and MaMa JoJo’s fresh artisan pasta and sauces. Songbird’s Kitchen will have their wonderful egg rolls, crab Rangoon, and fried rice. And 2Ts Soap & Stuff will have what has probably been the most popular Christmas gifts at the market this year – handcrafted soaps, balms, beard oils, and more. Just right for stockings, small gifts for the neighbors, the postman or woman, and the other good people in your life. If you want to get creative, put together a basket full of these Webb City-made products for a larger one-of-a-kind gift.

Remember, the Christmas Eve Market is the last market of the year. Our next market after that will be the first Saturday in 2021!

Which brings us to part two of this column, a review of the year we are not likely to forget - 2020. This was the first full year led by our market manager, Rachael Lynch. Talk about a trial by fire. The year started off with lots of plans and took a sharp left turn. Rachael organized a February celebration of African American heritage using a grant from the Missouri Humanities Council. A Cinco de Mayo celebration complete with dancing and a mariachi band was on the calendar too but that will have to happen next year - we hope.

By late February we had big jugs of hand sanitizer throughout the pavilion and hand washing stations set up. The market sought and received solid guidance from the city and the county health department. I headed to Denver to help my daughter and son-in-law who were trying to work fulltime from home with a 2- and a 4-year-old home fulltime as well. From there I could continue to work on grants and grant opportunities and attend and learn from the weekly CDC on-line presentations. Rachael held the fort down at the market, putting in place protocols, spacing out vendors, setting up an online store, and perhaps the biggest project, ramrodding the Free Kids Meals. Normally, the market can only do themeals when school is out in the summer, but the USDA urged their summer partners to start early to ensure kids were not going hungry in the spring. The Webb City schools took care of breakfast and lunch on weekdays. The market handed out two breakfasts and two lunches each Saturday to take care of the weekends. Our commercial kitchen is the envy of most markets but even it was stretched to capacity by the preparing, packing, storing, and distributing as many as 1,500 meals on Saturdays.

Once summer arrived, the market went back to its meals, packed to-go, on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. This fall, the market has provided breakfast and lunch to-go each Saturday.   Typically the market serves less than 4,000 free kids meals during a year. This year, we did over four times that.

We were fortunate this year to receive some critical grants. Expanding the pavilion has been a longtime goal at the market, so when a grant opportunity arose that could make that happen, I wrote the grant application, but needed a match.  I called long-time market supporter Bill Perry and asked if the Perry Foundation would consider providing those matching funds. He said he’d talk to Rebecca, his sister
who is also a long-time market booster, when she got home from a trip at the end of the week. Thirty minutes later Bill called back. He’d called Rebecca and the project was a go. While the grant was not approved, we learned that by eliminating the part of the proposal related to the current pavilion, we could build the 50-foot extension using just the Perry Foundation funding. The Perrys agreed and plans were in place even before we knew how important that extra space would become during a pandemic. We were also exceedingly fortunate that the Missouri Department of Agriculture found some unused grant funds that allowed us to put up another 140 running feet of tents and canopies.  Between the extension and the canopies we were able to increase our covered space by over 50%. That made a huge difference in reducing crowding and keeping the market vendors, customers, staff, and volunteers safe. In fact, once folks better understood how the virus was transmitted, the market felt like one of the safest places around.  And I think our customers felt the same way because despite a poor year for both sweet corn and peaches, two of our biggest crops, market sales increased in 2020.

 Another important grant allowed the market to re-start its SNAP matching program. In 2008 Wholesome Wave, a nonprofit on the east coast, began partnering with markets to provide a match of free produce tokens when SNAP customers purchased food stamp tokens to spend at participating markets. For eight years running, I contacted Wholesome Wave to see if they were taking on new markets.  Each time I got a no, so we just took a step of faith and started our own small matching program. As often happens, the market’s timing was charmed. Only a month later Wholesome Wave was looking for partners for a new federal matching program and because we’d created our own small pilot project, they were eager to include us. Their grant was awarded and we were able to increase our

SNAP customers’ produce purchasing  power. Results were impressive. Over the next three years, SNAP customers received more than $40,000 in extra produce, our farmers sold over $40,000 in extra produce, and customers reported significant health improvements like “I am no longer pre-diebetic!”  Then as that grant was ending we were approached by Fair Food Network, a Michigan nonprofit , who wanted us to join their program. So for another 18 months, we continued the matching program, until last fall funding was exhausted.  I was at a loss as to how we could continue this program that had been so successful and then Galen Foat found the Coover Foundation which is part of the Community Foundation of the Ozarks based in Springfield. I wrote a long-shot grant and, much to my surprise, it was awarded. Since we rolled out the program in May 2020, SNAP customers have received $14,300 in extra produce through the matching program. We expect to exhaust funding in early 2021. Normally that would make me sad, but we were invited last spring to partner with a Kansas City-based nonprofit on another grant application and it was awarded! We’ll start the program back up in late spring and funding is secure for another two and a half years. Did I mention that the market sometimes seems to lead a charmed life?

Our WIC program was started three years ago with $2,500 from Empty Bowls. This year we were ableto provide over $7,000 of extra produce, meat, and eggs to area low income young families participating in WIC. This program is privately funded. Though the market no longer receives any funding from Empty Bowls, others are stepping up – Soroptimists International of Joplin, the Robert Corely Foundation, donations from churches and individuals – including some folks who donated part of their stimulus checks. This winter the market sold used cookbooks, handmade pottery bowls and, with donations from customers, raised $600 for WIC. That will take care of one family shopping once a week for a year and leave another eight weeks for another family. If you’re looking for a way to do good and build the local economy, you won’t find a better program than this one that feeds our youngest neighbors healthy food and supports the sales of local farmers.

Finally, we received the good news that the Missouri Department of Agriculture is funding a multi-year project starting in 2021 at the market that will establish a teaching garden and provide nutrition and gardening instruction at the market for children and adults.

Despite all the problems presented by the pandemic in 2020, the market remained a safe gathering place and embraced its mission as a healthy welcoming community. The outlook for 2021 is bright. We are actively working with the city to improve parking and traffic flow for next year. The market has partnered with the MSSU Lion Coop to provide fresh produce for low income students. With our larger pavilion, teaching garden, accumulated knowledge on safe marketing, and a year’s worth of ideas for making the market even better, we are all looking forward to a 2021 we’ll remember for its celebrations and successes.

Finally, for part three which will be shorter than it should be. A third remembrance of another special part of the Webb City Sentinel, the cartoons of the remarkable Nic Frising. Nic’s cartoons could be biting, but mostly he was a cheerleader for all things good in Webb City. Personally, I have never known any other small town with such a talented, perceptive, and often times hilarious cartoonist. In fact, there are very few papers in the country that can boast its own cartoonist, much less one of such caliber. There is a display of Nic’s cartoons at the Clubhouse that includes the following description written by Bob Foos. I think it tells a lot about Nic and his place in Sentinel history.

“Fobby Boos. What’s happening in Webb City this week?”

That’s the routine that began my weekly Wednesday-night phone calls to Nic Frising for 25 years.

As well as Nic had Webb City figured out, many would probably be surprised that he had actually never lived here. I guess he got most of his insight about our culture while he was on the Webb City police force.

The gist of our conversations was me, as the straight man, explaining what was going to be in the newspaper, and him as the funny man, twisting my every word to make us laugh.

Nic’s cartoons were not based on my ideas. The rule was that I didn’t tell him what to draw, I told him what was going on. He’d be the one to determine what to draw.

He was decisive. Often, he’d be drawing while we were still on the phone.

It was not unusual for me to strike out at supplying cartoon material. Luckily, Nic played poker with a group of Webb Citians, self proclaimed as The Macho Club. Regular members included the Mosbaugh twins, Ron and Don, Don Darby, Bud Corner and Chuck Thornberry. They could usually come up with something. If not, Nic would draw them just talking about topics.

And if all else failed, there was always that crazy Missouri weather."

Webb City Sentinel market column - 12/16/2020

This week is the last Saturday market of the year. That’s because next week we will have a Christmas Eve Market, but no Saturday market. Christmas falls on a Friday, so we will be open under the pavilion from 11 to 1 on Thursday, December 24. Then we’ll skip Saturday, December 26, because we do not want our vendors spending Christmas Day preparing for market. So far the Christmas Eve Market is looking like Fresh Food Central. We have lots of produce from our farmers, including Brakers Berry Farm, OakWoods, Harmony Hill, MO Mushrooms, Misty Morning, and Fairhaven Garden coming. Harmony will also have baked goods, so if you want something special, be sure to let Mabel know this Saturday. Fairhaven will also have their jams and jellies, fresh pecans, peanut brittle, pecan brittle, and peanut butter balls. Misty Morning will also have beef.

This Saturday is your last chance to get some of that delicious Methodist chili and fudge. While the previous Saturday sales have benefited the Webb City Christmas basket program, this Saturday’s sales will benefit the market’s WIC program which provides two $5 coupons good for fresh produce, meat or eggs each week to WIC participants. 

Central United Methodist Church has supported this program, which helps low income families provide healthy market food to their young children, since it began. A pint of chili without beans is $7, two pints are $13. A pint of chili with beans is $5.50, two pints are $10. A half pound of fudge is $4. Paul Jackson and his good wife, Janis, will staff the church’s table. Paul has been a dedicated shopper for 21 years now and after year one approached me with the suggestion that the market needed a manager on site and he volunteered to be that manager. He kept us organized for many years before  Eastern Star required his full attention. 

All our crafters will be back this Saturday, plus Alchemist Haven is coming with oils, scrubs, butters, balms, and more. This may also be your last chance to grab stocking stuffers at DnD Smoked and Juniper Coffee.  Songbird’s Kitchen will have Asian specialties like crab Rangoon and egg rolls. We’ll have Clear Water Shrimp, as well as Good Golly Tamale. MaMa JoJo's is back with artisan pasta you can cook at home and market-made sauces. Harmony Hill and Redings Mill will have baked goods. There’ll be popcorn and pork rind snacks from Kings Kettle Corn. And of course, the stars of the show are our ranchers and farmers. We’ll have Garrett’s, Misty Morning, and Sunny Lane selling beef, chicken, lamb, and pork. You can pick up fresh local produce from the tables of Braker Berry Farm, Fairhaven Berries & Produce, Harmony Hill Farm, Misty Morning Farms, and OakWoods Farms. Helm Family Farm will have local raw honey and honey candies and lip balms.

And we’ll be festive because our new garland was hung last week and Drew Pommert will fill the market with holiday songs.

The Free Kids Meal features a breakfast of a Holiday Pancake, fruit, and milk and a lunch of  a chicken, cranberry, almond wrap served with a Shredded Carrot & Pineapple salad, and milk. Kids from 1 through 18 receive both the breakfast and lunch, packed to go, from 9 to 11 on Saturday. If you’re picking up for your kids or grandkids, just show our wonderful volunteers a photo of yourself with the kids so they can get a headcount.

It’s going to be another special market. Don’t miss it.

Now for some old news, another peek into the Sentinel’s past.

For several years, Jan Ladd wrote, or to be more accurate, collected tidbits for a column she dubbed Lollypop Logic. There were many memories shared and preserved in the Sentinel like “Recently three-year-old Alex was discussing the possibility of a new baby brother or sister with his father. ‘I want a baby boy,’ was Alex’s contribution. His father explained that God decided if the baby was a boy or a girl, but that Mommy would carry the baby in her tummy a long time while Alex became used to the idea of a sister or brother. Alex put his hands on his hips, looked up at his father and said ‘Mommy tried that with me, but I fell out.’”

Every family has those hilarious or precious moments, but not every town had a newspaper that celebrated them. Newspapers do more than print the news. They create memories and shape the history of a community. I expect Sentinel clippings are in hundreds of scrapbooks preserving the history of individuals and families, of young people and old, of big events and small.

Thanks for the memories.

Webb City Sentinel market column - 12-9-2020

If all goes well this week, we’ll look different on Saturday. The Parks Department plans to drop the sides on the pavilion. The sides will provide protection from the wind, but it will still be chilly inside so dress warmly. The pavilion doors will remain open so the space is well ventilated and safe.

While we don’t have our official Christkindlmarket this year, we have been able to host some popular gift crafters. They’re all scheduled to return this week – 2Ts Soap and Stuff, Debbie Fedie’s sewn
goods, BDJ Creations with holiday woodcrafts, Jane’s Glass Art, and Nancy’s Doll Closet with loads of hand sewn clothes for 18” dolls. Of course, many of our regular market vendors also sell products that make good gifts. Mo Mushrooms is selling dried mushrooms as well as mushroom powder that would be welcome in a cook’s stocking. Juniper Coffee has locally roasted coffee beans for the coffee drinker and a new product that is receiving rave reviews – Juniper & Cardamom House Syrup. I’m not a coffee drinker but I
was hooked this summer when I tasted their cold brew flavored with their signature syrup. Just right for stockings, kitchen cupboards, and coffee bars at work, this is a gift that will be used and appreciated.

Oakwoods has mild and hot chili seasonings just right for winter. DnD Smoked also has chili seasoning that a certain city manager swears by. My mother always loved getting bags of fresh pecans from Fairhaven in her stocking. They’re great for snacking and for cooking, and while you’re at Fairhaven’s table don’t forget the pecan and peanut brittle and chocolate peanut butter balls.

Market branded gifts include our hats and bags and who wouldn’t want some market tokens in their stocking to spend in 2021?

Grison Dairy and Creamery will have cow’s cheese at the market this Saturday. We’ll also have five farms with fresh produce, three ranches and farms with all-natural meats, Harmony Hill and Redings Mill with baked goods, and Clear Water Shrimp Farm. We’re expecting Songbird’s Kitchen with Asian food.

David Loving is playing at the market’s center stage from 9 to 11.

The Free Kids Meals this week are:  Breakfast – market-made pumpkin oat energy bar served with a cinnamon yogurt dif, fruit, and milk. Lunch – Oven fried rice with market carrots, peas, parsley and egg, a Songbird Kitchen eggroll, and milk.

Confession time. Our pumpkin oat energy bar uses butternut squash instead of pumpkin. Butternut is often used to substitute for pumpkin in soups and pies. Last fall we picked up two huge boxes of butternuts from E & O Produce’s bumper crop. Some we used fresh in the kids meals, but most of which we baked, pureed, and froze. Now it’s a breeze to defrost and incorporate in the meals. Anyone, aged 1 through 18, can pick up a local butternut oat energy bar and other breakfast and lunch delights, packed to go, from 9 to 11 at the market on Saturday. If the kids aren’t there, just show our wonderful volunteers a photo of you with them so they can get a head count.

As I’m sure you’ve heard, this is the last month that the Sentinel will exist in print. Each week I plan to include an appreciation for some part of the Sentinel and the first I’d like to share with you is the long time column called Coonfoot nd Vicinity. This weekly column was written by Louise Ott, a lady I never had the pleasure of knowing but who must have been a very special person. Each column started with a variation of “The Good Lord blessed us with…” rain, or heat, or wind, or some other kind of weather. Louise then proceeded to keep us up to date on all the happenings north of Alba - who had dinner with whom, whose cousin, aunt, brother, or childhood friend had come to town to visit, who had taken shopping trips to the big city (Joplin). The Lamar Free Fair was always fun but the Kentucky Fried Chicken closing in Carthage was criminal. (A new one is open now.)

This “All About Town” type of column has deep roots at the Sentinel. You would have found a daily front page column sharing the same kind of news in the Sentinel in the early 1900s. Even at the turn of the 21^st century times seemed more casual. For example, did you know that twenty years ago when Coonfoot was being published one of the Jasper County polling places was Louise’s laundry room and the voting machine sat on her washing machine?   

Coonfoot was the first column that my children looked for when they were in college and was the absolute favorite of their roommates and friends. The arrival of the weekly Sentinel always meant a gathering as Cora or Emily read Coonfoot to everyone. Emily’s friends were especially intrigued with the Sentinel. Both her roommates grew up in New York City and they had never known anyone who was in the local newspaper. They were amazed that Emily knew lots of people in the paper, that her family was in the paper, and her first grade teacher, and her preacher, and…even Emily herself was in the paper occasionally. A few weeks ago when the Sentinel ran a photo of Emily’s new baby, I emailed her a digital copy of the page with a message “Guess what, Emily?  You still know people in the Sentinel!”   

Times change, communication styles change, but let’s remember we are a community and find ways to stay in touch.

Webb City Sentinel market column - 12/2/2020

Can it be December? You'll find the sides still off this Saturday so it will be chilly, and I do mean chilly. Drew Pommert is scheduled to play but though he has braved some pretty cold days I doubt he'll try with the temperature in the 30s. So bundle up and think Winter Wonderland! 

 We won't do the adult meal since its so cold, but the kids meals will be ready for pick up between 9 and 11. Kids, aged 1 through 18, get both breakfast and lunch, packed to go. To quote our manager “we're going bananas for breakfast!” It's a market-made banana chocolate chip granola bar with a banana and milk. Lunch is a grilled cheese hotdog served with applesauce, a kale & carrot salad, and milk. That salad will be delicious. Winter carrots are the best of the year. For some reason, the cold temperature really brings out their sweetness.

Decorations by BDJ

If you were at the market last Saturday you saw that it was decked out for Christmas with tinsel, balls, and bows on the posts. That is, if you notice that sort of thing. I asked my husband Phil how he liked the decorations (they were right in front of him) and he said “What decorations?” Oh well. They are not as spectacular as we had planned. But we couldn't drape the garland and lights with the sides off so we had to stick to what could be put up and taken down for each market. It's a bit disappointing because we were really ready to provide a show this year. Last year about this time I was concerned because I knew I would not be around to decorate the pavilion in the future and the decorations we had were very laborious. We needed to simplify. The board agreed and allocated funding and then I promptly forgot but luckily board member Galen did not. He began researching, which is one of his strong suits, and found festive garland on sale at one of the national craft stores. He contacted me and I checked out the same store that had several locations in the Denver area and between the two of us we bought a truckload of decorations. So that will be one more thing to look forward to next year.

What you can look forward to this Saturday:  fresh local produce, raw honey and honey products, Harmony Hill and Redings Mill baked goods, shrimp, beef, pork, lamb, and chicken, kettle corn and other snacks, mushrooms, tamales, jams and jellies, candies, smoked spices and salts, and freshly ground coffee beans and drinks (and festive post decorations). 

Crafters include 2Ts Soap & Stuff, BDJ Creations with holiday themed woodcrafts, Nancy's Doll Closet with outfits for 18” dolls, and Jane's Glass Art. Jane comes up with a new Christmas ornament every year to add to her collection which includes ornaments featuring shepherds, wise men, and the holy family. This year she added masks. "2020" is on the ornament but I doubt we could forget which year we added a mask to the tree.

Central United Methodist Church will have chili with beans and chili without beans, as well as fudge for sale. All profits go to the community Christmas basket program.

The market will have hand thrown pottery and gently used cookbooks for sale to support the market's WIC program. There are also festive gift cards just right for a Christmas card or stocking for you to use when honoring a friend or family member with a gift to the program. What an apt way to celebrate that family sheltering in a stable by giving a gift that provides food to our youngest families in need.

The parks department plans to put the sides on the pavilion next week, primarily to block the wind which can be chilling. We won't be heating the pavilion this year because the double doors will be open to keep our shoppers and vendors as safe as possible. So come prepared for the weather.

The cold will help us do our shopping quickly and move on. That's the safest way to shop this year. And I've noticed my mask keeps my face nice and warm. During the heat of the summer my mask was warm, too, which wasn't so nice.

The traditional winter markets in Europe are always held in the open air in very cold weather, often at night when it's even colder. Admittedly they may keep warm with Gluhwein, a hot mulled wine. But we have coffee! As we enter what will certainly be a cold and memorable winter, let's fill it with warmth of spirit, the joy of welcome, and with kindness, generosity, and good food!