Bringing New Events and Educational Programming to the Market Hall

The SFFMI is working with the Farmer’s Market to make the Market Hall a more usable space for educational programming, evening events, business meetings, concerts and community use.  Soon we hope to have a commercial kitchen, our own tables and chairs, partitions, upgraded lighting so we can host gatherings on non-Market days.  Once in place, we can implement cooking and gardening classes, professional development work with the farmers, talks on food and agriculture, all without having to rent the infrastructure to do it!

Programming Development

The Institute has very specific needs to make the Market Hall a more usable space for our programming, evening events, business meetings, concerts, community use and more.  What does this have to do with the farmers?  It’s helping us create another revenue stream for the building to support both the Farmers’ Market organization and the Institute.  And, it will allow us to begin the programming in the building we want to do (cooking classes, gardening classes, professional development work with the farmers, talks and lectures on food and agriculture) without having to rent the infrastructure to do it.

The Agenda

First on the agenda is to purchase tables and chairs and create a storage area to house them.  Next, to make it easier to hold catered events in the Hall and to expand the offerings at the Café, we hope to build out a small commercial kitchen where the café is now, so that we can prepare locally grown farm food to sell at every Market, and so caterers can have a usable space for preparing meals for events.  We also need to add some lighting for evening events.  And finally, we’d like to add educational materials around the Market Hall with photos of farms and farmers that illustrate the 43-year history of the Market.

This is a $250,000 project that will be phased in as money becomes available.  So far, we’ve purchased 120 chairs and need 80 more.  They cost $80 each (with a lifetime warranty), and we need to purchase 25 tables, which also cost $80 each.  Partition walls have been erected around the café.  Now we are seeking $40,000 to upgrade the lighting in the hall, and will work after that to raise the funding to build-out the commercial kitchen.  If you’d like to help, call us and we’ll give you a complete update on our status.