Campus News

Farmer’s Mar­ket Makes De­but on Cam­pus

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MISHAWAKA—A to­tal of 81 stu­dents took ad­van­tage of Bethel’s din­ing com­mon’s first farmer’s mar­ket on cam­pus through the res­i­dent din­ing pro­mo­tions, pro­vided by Har­vest Greens and Planet Eat. The mar­ket was lo­cated right out­side the din­ing com­mons for a cou­ple hours Sep. 8.

Jes­sica Buzza, mar­ket­ing man­ager for the din­ing com­mons, said that there was a great turnout and pos­i­tive stu­dent feed­back.

“The weather was def­i­nitely in our fa­vor,” Buzza said. 

She said if it had rained, they would have moved the mar­ket in­side to the Pres­i­den­t’s din­ing room, in which case she did not think the turnout would have been as good, since it was dur­ing lunchtime and there was more foot traf­fic through that out­side area.

At the mar­ket there was lo­cal pro­duce, mainly through Pi­azza, who is es­sen­tially a dis­trib­u­tor for other lo­cal farms. There were also two other booths that did not sell pro­duce—Make South Bend and Smoke Free St. Joe’s. Those booths were lo­cal sell­ers that had per­sonal con­nec­tions here, in­clud­ing 

  • Bethel students checking out Make South Bend
  • Small business in downtown South Bend, Make South Bend. They offer classes as well as sell posters, clothing, candles, and more.
  • Pumpkins from local farmers
  • Farm fresh Peaches from local farms
Fresh Market, brought to you by Bethel Dining Services. Pictures provided by Emma Tamalunas

The idea for the mar­ket stemmed from Har­vest Greens hav­ing sweep­stakes to en­ter to win and that gave them the idea to start a farmer’s mar­ket. Sodexo im­ple­ments ac­tiv­i­ties or events with many uni­ver­si­ties na­tion­wide and this was one of the two they put on per se­mes­ter. Oth­ers have in­cluded karaoke nights and chapel par­ties. They are hop­ing to put on an­other farmer’s mar­ket in the Spring to­wards the end of the se­mes­ter as the weather gets warmer again.

Sherri Hess, op­er­a­tions man­ager, added that there will be more an­nounce­ments in the fu­ture for when and where the next mar­ket will be tak­ing place. 

“We would love feedback on things they would like to purchase,” Hess said.

Buzza added that the biggest thing mov­ing for­ward is for stu­dents to know that Bethel Bucks can be used on the pro­duce stands. 

“Stu­dents were ask­ing if we could do it once a week…” Buzza said, “We were re­ally happy with the out­come…”

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