Oak Lawn has canceled its farmers market for this year, but hopes to have it eventually return bigger and better.
Village officials decided a successful market needed more than two farmers selling fresh fruits and vegetables.
For most of the past 20 years, Oak Lawn has had three or more farms participating in its market, which set up next to the Oak Lawn Public Library Wednesday mornings from June to October, said Deanne Adasiak, the village’s special events coordinator
“For years, Van Kalker Farms took up a really big space,” Adasiak said. “He had a ton of product.”
But in 2021, the village learned Van Kalker, based in Lynwood, Illinois, was not coming to Oak Lawn.
So the market went on last year with two farmers, J.W. Morlock & Girls from Michigan and Six Generations Farm from Barrington, Illinois, plus a dozen or so other vendors selling bakery, nuts, jams, bouquets and plants, handmade textiles, jewelry and prepared food. The village also hired entertainers to perform live music.
But shoppers missed Van Kalker because that farm had brought the widest variety of produce and flowers, Adasiak said.
“We had a lot of negative feedback on social media and calls to the mayor,” that the market was not up to par, she said.
So in September, Adasiak started looking for more farms to join Morlock & Girls and Six Generations to restore the market’s vibrancy.
“We really wanted it to be a go,” she said.
Adasiak said she called Van Kalker in hopes of persuading the business to return, but was told it was not doing farmers markets anymore. Transporting the produce and staffing the booth had become too hard.
“I don’t think it had anything to do with the pandemic,” Adasiak said.
She also contacted at least 10 other farms, asking if they would join Oak Lawn’s market, but did not get a commitment from any of them. There were a variety of reasons: some had scheduling conflicts; some did not have enough employees to staff multiple markets; and some did not return her calls.
“We considered changing the day (of the market),” Adasiak said, but that did not result in bookings.
One farm was willing to sell bulk produce to the village, but village employees would have to set up the tent and tables and sell the goods to shoppers, an arrangement that was not acceptable, Adasiak said.
Oak Lawn Village Trustee Paul Mallo said Oak Lawn’s numerous grocery stores have extensive produce departments that might reduce the need for a farmers market.
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Chicago Ridge, for example, does not host a farmers market.
But Adasiak believes Oak Lawn residents still want an outdoor market, if it’s a “good one.”
So the village is willing to have a farmers market in the future, she said, when they are confident it would be one that is well stocked with a variety of vendors and farmers.
Evergreen Park’s Farmers Market is returning to Yukich Field, at 89th and Kedzie Avenue on Thursdays from May to October, said Beth Novotney, director of the village’s Office of Citizen Services.
“We have lost a couple farmers,” Novotney said. Part of that is due to their focusing on operating markets at their own farms, rather than spending the time and expense of loading and unloading their harvests to transport to another area.
“For the smaller farmers, it’s not cost effective,” she said.
Dotson’s Farm in Beecher, Illinois and Skibbe Farms from Michigan are two farmers that will be back in Evergreen Park in 2022, alongside vendors selling honey, eggs and other items, Novotney said.
Kimberly Fornek is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.