Athens Farmers Market launches GoFundMe amid rising costs, funding cuts | Arts & Culture

The Athens Farmers Market (AFM) — like many local institutions — hasn’t been left untouched by the current ripple effects of the country’s economic climate. Facing dwindling funding and rising costs, the market is working to stay afloat through the use of a GoFundMe campaign titled “Help Sustain the Athens Farmers Market” and other community efforts, aiming to navigate this unforeseen time in order to eventually restore its programs to full strength.

The market takes place at Creature Comforts every Wednesday evening from March to November, and at Bishop Park every Saturday morning year round. Featuring many produce, arts and other vendors weekly, it creates a space suited across all age ranges and personal interests.  

According to AFM Director Brian Strickland, the market is a C corporation, or for-profit business, which makes it harder to apply for grants than if it were a nonprofit. The AFM has historically been deeply dependent on external funding, now dwindling due to the current economic climate. 

Navigating the grant process and the grant cycles in recent years has been extremely difficult.

“We’ve written over $450,000 worth of grants and have only received about $5,000 worth of those,” Strickland said. “The effort put into grants versus the outcome from grants has been really overweighted on the effort side, and not really seeing the outcome side.” 

Last year, the AFM had a $200,000 grant from UnitedHealthcare that helped fund the market’s entire food security program, covered a portion of the staffing salaries and fully paid the salary for the program manager who oversaw the food security and prescription program, FarmRx. 

From April until the end of November, FarmRx donated $63,000 worth of produce to 100 families. It also offered healthy nutrition cooking classes, gardening classes, transportation to the market on both Wednesdays and Saturdays for those without vehicles and gas cards for participants with vehicles.

Facing financial pressure

The focus of these programs is making access to healthy produce available to all. Strickland said measurable health improvements were seen in many participants, with some people experiencing the ability to come off of medications. 

“I think [FarmRx is] an amazing program,” Sara Skinner, owner of Classic City Gourmet Mushrooms and an AFM weekly vendor, said. “People come and tell me, ‘Yeah, my A1C is down this week,’ you know? They’re getting real health benefits.” 

Skinner worries that the FarmRx program can no longer be as robust as it has been in years past, and this will impact the sales and purchasing opportunities on evenings and mornings at the market.

“On Saturdays, about a quarter to a third of our farmers market revenue comes from tokens, whether that’s from FarmRx or from the EBT,” Skinner said. “So those are folks who certainly if those programs didn’t exist, wouldn’t be buying.” 

Skinner is a specialty grower and vendor of gourmet mushrooms, vending weekly at the AFM. Farming mushrooms for over 15 years, she has been selling her mushrooms at the AFM for the last three. 

“Costs are rising kind of across the board, so our inputs and supplies, utility costs, all of that is going up,” she said. “I know vendor fees are going to have to go up as well, and that’s just inevitable.”

Raised costs for vending at the market will cut into Skinner’s revenue, as she doesn’t feel she can raise her prices with her “dedicated and loyal” customer base, because everyone is having to make choices due to personal impact of current political climate. Other weekly vendors share a similar situation. 

Adapting for survival

The AFM usually annually receives $20,000 to $25,000 in sponsorships from different community organizations and businesses in Athens. This year, however, the numbers dropped significantly as many longtime repeating sponsors cut back on the amount of money given in support of the AFM, if they even continued at all. 

Strickland said tight income has affected the market’s budget and ability to provide its typical programs to their full extent, causing a need to “really tailor things back” and focus on grassroots marketing and outreach.

“It’s just a restructuring of how we have to operate our business,” he said. “Not having the external funding from grants and sponsorships, and just in general, has made us really re-evaluate our budget and have to tighten up on things.”

But Strickland noted that it’s not the only local-food and local-farming centric community group that is having to cut back due to the current economic status and inflation. 

“It’s unfortunate,” Strickland said. “But without taking the steps to restructure and look and see where you’re at and see what your bottom line is, you won’t be around much longer if you don’t take the necessary steps to make sure everything is successful.”

Strickland described the effort as an “evolving process,” learning how to best connect with the community while having an option for them to give back to the farmers market during this challenging time.

“We felt like reaching out to the community and starting a GoFundMe so that people could give as they could, and we’ve seen a lot of progress with that,” Strickland said. “We are extremely grateful for the support that the community has given us, and we still have the GoFundMe going.”

Strickland emphasized that when attendees spend money at the farmers market, it typically stays in Athens, because the majority of vendors are from Athens or the surrounding area. Over the past couple years, annually, the market has kept over $1.3 million in sales each year, putting roughly $200,000 back into the Athens economy after sales tax. 

“We’re really just focused on benefiting community and making sure that the market is is a place where people can, not just continue to meet the same people, but meet new people, make new connections, make new community and just find different ways to benefit not just the farmers market, but the overall Athens economic status,” Strickland said. 

The AFM has raised over $4,500 towards its $50,000 GoFundMe goal and according to the statement accompanying fundraising efforts, it aims to grow and thrive in the coming years in order to give back to the community.