Now that the holiday season is upon us and the weather is definitely feels more like winter than Market season, it’s time to close this year’s Market. Before we look ahead to next year, and on behalf of our entire Market team, I’d like to thank you for your support and patronage of the 2022 Season of the Ravinia Farmers Market!
Whether you shopped weekly or visited the Market on occasion, your patronage and Market spend helped to support local small farms, producers and businesses. Your purchases each week also help to foster a vibrant community, support sustainability and resilience and build the local food system in the Midwest. We hope you created great relationships with all of our vendors, and will continue to support them in the off-season through online stores and home delivery if applicable.
I’d like to recognize and thank our civic sponsors: Ravinia Neighbors Association (4th-year sponsor), the City of Highland Park, the Park District of Highland Park(1st-year sponsor), Illinois Farmers Market Association, Presence Marketing, and our music sponsors, the Highland Park Community Foundation (2nd-year sponsor) and Life Rhythms (2nd-year sponsor). Immense gratitude to our Gold Sponsors: Carolyn Cerf-Coldwell Banker Realty (1st-year sponsor) and Keyth Security Systems (6th-year sponsor). Our great appreciation goes as well to our 20 new Friends of The Ravinia Farmers Market sponsors.
Before I review this year’s Market season, I would like to reflect on the tragic events that happened on July 4 in Highland Park, and which served to bring us all closer together in community resilience and strength.
From my perspective as Market Manager these past six years, I’d like to share some highlights of the 2022 Season, which happened every Wednesday from 7am-1pm at Jens Jensen Park in Highland Park from June 1 through October 26.
- Opening Day – Our 44th season launched with 30 vendors.
- Covid-19 protocols were not necessary, although we continued to practice safety measures to protect the attendees and vendors for the entire season. In addition, the Market continued to follow the health protocols of the City of Highland Park and Lake County Health Department.
- Closing Day brought chilly temps at the end of October, but a large crowd came out to support our vendors and stock up for the off-season.
- Musical Entertainment was sponsored by the Highland Park Community Foundation, with Noah Plotkin of Life Rhythms coordinating the fabulous schedule of local musicians.
- A special thank you to musician “Jazzman” Jeff Justman for donating his time, talents and music, with his continued presence for the last five years at the RFM.
- For the fourth year, the Ravinia Farmers Market had the honor and privilege of being the only farmers market in the country conducting a weekly free drawing to give away complimentary passes to Ravinia Festival, as well as gift cards from local businesses and natural product goody bags. Thank you also to all who participated in the regular Spin-to-Win Taste-A-Thon, sponsored by Presence Marketing and which provided the natural/organic products give-aways.
- Assistant Market Manager Roxanne Junge conducted two market tours for attendees and Friends of the Market. The tours provided insights into each vendor’s business and products as well as built attendee knowledge of the importance of farmers markets in the local economy and food system.
- This year, we launched two new sponsorship programs for local businesses and Market attendees. We were thrilled to welcome Carolyn Cerf-Coldwell Banker Realty as our newest Gold Sponsor, and we hope you were able to visit her each week in her tent to learn the latest about the local real estate market and enter her weekly give-away drawings. Keyth Security Systems, our other Gold Sponsor, continued to provide behind-the-scenes support.
In addition, we were honored and humbled to welcome 20 supporters as Friends of the Ravinia Farmers Market. They each received our deepest thanks, along with Market shopping tokens, a thermal Market shopping bag, Market tours and other perks.
Next year will mark the 45th anniversary season of the Ravinia Farmers Market, and we’re already working on ideas to celebrate. We welcome your input and comments, as well as would be happy to include you as a volunteer for the Market and/or celebration committee. We look forward to the return of our 2022 vendors, as well as new farmers, producers, take-away vendors and small businesses. Please don’t hesitate to contact us with suggestions and contacts for the 2023 season.
Be sure to mark your calendar for June 7, Opening Day of the 2023 Season. In the meantime, thank you again for your support. From all of us at the Ravinia Farmers Market, we wish you a safe and happy holiday season, a blessed New Year and a peaceful winter.
Naturally yours,
Ed
Ed Kugler, Market Manager Ravinia Farmers Market 847.561.1302
raviniafm@gmail.com
