The NEW Mount Airy Main Street Farmers' Market: It’s about the Community

Join the Mount Airy Main Street Farmers' Market as it celebrates a “new beginning” when it opens for the season on Wednesday, June 1 at 3:00 p.m. behind the historic Mount Airy train station at 3 North Main Street in Mount Airy.

The revitalized market is "bringing it home" to the local community this season with a new approach. “In addition to expanding the market to include over 20 vendors this season, we are inviting the entire community to participate,” said Ellie Bonde, Market Master. 

"The South Carroll High School Jazz Band has been invited to help us kick off this season on our opening day,” said Bonde. “We are hoping to also promote the band as well as Mount Airy Middle School's music program's concert at 7:00 p.m. that night! We are engaging our community by starting with promoting our local schools.”

For Bonde, the market is all about the community—the community within the market and the community it serves.  “We will have a market abuzz with a variety of themed community-based activities and will feature live local music every week.”

When the market committee looked at what the Greater Mount Airy community wanted, it found that the community wanted a vibrant farmers’ market with a variety of products from local farmers and producers from the four-county area and within the local region.  “We also wanted a market that would include the Main Street business community, merchants and restaurants, and promote the community as a whole,” said the Marketing and Events Coordinator, Alice Settle-Raskin—who along with the Mount Airy Main Street Manager, Ashley Collier—has been talking with the town's Main Street businesses to enlist their support.

“We met with some our farmers’ market vendors recently; such as New Windsor-based Willow Creek Manor Farming—one of the largest, if not the largest, certified-organic farms in the state of Maryland. To us, the fact that they chose our town’s Main Street Farmers’ Market means something,” said Settle-Raskin. “It shows that the market has drawn the attention and the support of our local community.”  There is definitely excitement building in the air surrounding the market and what it means to the Mount Airy community as a whole.

In addition to Willow Creek Manor Farming, featured at the market will be farmers and producers who have their own farm-fresh vegetables and fruits, plants, flowers, meat, dairy-products, pickles, coffee, kombucha, farm-brewed bottled beer, wood-fired pizza, and baked goods. The market will also feature local restaurants with farm-to-fork specials, a jewelry designer and someone to sharpen your kitchen knives ... and much, much more.

“With this market, we’re not only drawing attention of the Greater Mount Airy community,” said Collier, “we’re attracting a much larger community because the Town of Mount Airy has a Main Street designated as one of the 23 communities within the Maryland Main Street Program. It will bring tourism, people to shop and dine along Main Street and it will be a boost to our local economy.”

“We started the Mount Airy Main Street Farmers' Market in 2007,” said Dick Swanson, the former market master. “Even though it has waned a bit in recent years, we believe our new approach to involve the community with our new 15-week farmers’ market will have a tremendous following and will become the local destination market.”

The new 15-week Mount Airy Main Street Farmers’ Market runs on Wednesdays,
3:00 – 7:00 pm, June 1 – Sept. 7, 2016.  To learn more and see a full list of vendors, please visit MountAiryMainStreetFarmersMarket.Weebly.com.

Media Contact:  Ellie Bonde | Market Master, Mount Airy Main Street Farmers' Market | (301) 829-8300