Farmer’s Market: in U-District

We had a busy weekend. Izzy and I tried giving out Monitors at the University District Saturday Farmer's Market, which is right in front of the U-District Joint Literature office and the Third Church CS Reading Room. The market has been right in front of Third Church for more than a decade but to my knowledge no one has ever done proactive outreach at the market. At times the Reading Room has gotten some first-time visitors during its open hours, if only to use the bathroom, but in recent years hardly at all. At first Izzy and I tried offering free sample copies to the crowd waiting on the sidewalk for their "To Go" orders from Morsel, a popular biscuit restaurant, but got few takers. Then we tried people as they entered the market at 50th Street, with no success.

Eventually we set up a table on the sidewalk right near the Farmer's Market manager's booth. That worked.

We found that people would come up and take a copy, or 3 if we displayed more copies. We found that the more disengaged with passers-by we looked the better. So we had a nice time chatting together while people took about 25 copies. It was an unusually light crowd that day. I think if there were more people there we'd have given out a lot more, especially now that we know what works. Maybe we'll do it again sometime.

As the market was closing, I went shopping and found a booth selling smoked salmon for a Native-owned company. We talked and I ended up giving him copies of the recent Monitor issues on "Indigenous Renewal" and the June issue on abduction of Navajo women, which he said he would read with interest.

Do you have a market near your church? Give this a try!