After 2 years of pandemic upheaval, market is ready to bring joy to LS shoppers again

Last Saturday, after two years of pandemic upheaval, the Lee’s Summit Farmers Market opened when it should and where it should.

“It’s exciting to be able to start the season off with some sense of normalcy instead of the chaos over the past two years,” said Karin Velez, of Wolf Creek Family Farms in Peculiar. “Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street and the Farmers Market committee did a lot of work and jumped through a lot of hoops the last two seasons to be sure we were able to hold the market and customers were able to reach us. Beginning the season in our regular spot with no restrictions is a breath of fresh air.

“We’re excited to see our community.”

Velez is hardly alone in her feelings about the market actually opening on time Saturday at its traditional location of SE Second and SE Douglas streets.

“It feels great. It feels like it was meant to be,” said Donnie Rodgers, executive director of Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street, which organizes the market.

This season there will be more than 40 vendors on Saturdays and about 14 vendors on Wednesdays, Rodgers said. The market is open from 8 to noon both days. The season will conclude on Nov. 19.

Velez is among the many returning vendors, but shoppers will find new ones like Love At First Bite, a keto and gluten free baker from Belton.

“I heard this was a good farmers market,” said Love At First Bite owner Michelle Rencher.

What hasn’t changed is the seasonality of the vendors.

“At the start, not all will be there,” Rodgers said. The market, he added, will become more full as the produce growing season progresses.

Saturday’s opening had sunshine and lots of customers.

“The market is such a social event,” Rodgers said. “People want to see their friends. I think people are ready for social interaction at the farmers market.”

It’s been a difficult two years.

In 2020, the market had to shut down in the beginning and weren’t able to reopen until June. It was relocated to the Abundant Life church and operated as a drive-thru market for the first three weeks.

“That was just crazy because we had 500 cars come through,” Rodgers said.

The market later opened with vendor stalls at the church’s property, which is where it started its 2021 season. The market eventually moved to its downtown location later in 2021.

Velez said the pandemic taught her that any business needs to be flexible and “able to pivot on a moment’s notice.”

“I learned that a revenue stream on the farm is dangerous if something unforeseen happens, so diversification is important,” she said.

“If our only source of income on the farm was farmers markets and we weren’t able to jump to online ordering for home delivery, we would have been in real trouble. Thankfully we had multiple sales channels, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t continued to find ways to diversify a little bit more.”

Velez started doing gardening consulting.

Velez said she also learned that farmers market customers truly consider the vendors “their farmers.”

“We have a connection to them through the farmers markets and they know what we’re doing and how we’re doing it and they claim us as their own,” Velez said.

“Shortages in the stores can make people feel really helpless and we’ve had many families tell us that knowing they could count on us to feed them was one less stressor during a very stressful time.”