Customers check out the produce at the Langley Farmers Market. The weekly market is looking for an indoor home.

Customers check out the produce at the Langley Farmers Market. The weekly market is looking for an indoor home.

Outdoor farmers market wants indoor home for winter

Langley Community Farmers Market hopes to operate in November and December

The outdoor Langley Community Farmers Market is looking for an indoor home for the winter, a location that would allow the market to serve customers in November and December.

What’s needed is a site that could accommodate an indoor market on the first and third Saturdays of the months, Farmers Market manager Benedict Canale told The Times on Thursday (Aug. 8).

The market is looking at a number of options, but no decision has been made yet, Canale added.

He said a winter market would build on the success of the spring and summer market, which is doing the best business of its five-year history with more vendors than ever.

“Sales have been higher than they’ve ever been,” Canale said.

The Langley Community Farmers Market  is a non-profit organization that promotes locally grown foods, farm products, arts and crafts as well as non-profit activist groups like the Langley Environmental Partners Society,  FLK Taoist Tai Chi Society, and the Langley Gogos ‘Grandmothers to Grandmothers’ campaign against HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Its stated mandate is to “preserve and promote local agriculture, enhance local community and improve the overall quality of life.”

The 2013 Langley Community Farmers Market season opened on May 22 and is scheduled to run every Wednesday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. until October 9 at the Kwantlen University campus courtyard, 20901 Langley Bypass.

Canale said activity is up from last year, when 900 visitors attended and an average of 31 vendors each week.

In all, the market welcomed 18,000 visitors throughout the 2012 season, an increase of 20 per cent over 2011.

Anyone interested in providing a winter home for the market is asked to contact Canale at info@langleycommunityfarmersmarket.com.

The market was also voted second runner-up in the voting for Favourite B.C. Farmers Market as part of the We Heart Local Awards.

Langley Times