About Us
The Corner Farmers Market
Our Story
The market is the brainchild of Stephen Johnson, urban farmer and proprietor of Elam Gardens just a block away from The (original) Corner. In 2013, he contacted Mike Faucette, a 7th generation farmer, and meat guy Bobby Coltrane to round out the initial offering. Neil Reitzel, owner of Sticks and Stones, was already purchasing local produce from the trio and offered up the parking lot for a Saturday morning market at The Corner of Walker and Elam Avenues .
Since those humble beginnings, our community has come out to The Corner Farmers Market every Saturday for almost a decade. We’ve added more growers, makers and bakers — and grown deep roots as a neighborhood source of nourishment.
In the summer of 2021, after outgrowing our original market space, we moved from The Corner that gave us our name and our start to a larger location just blocks away at 2105 West Market Street, in the lot adjacent to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. You can find us there every Saturday, year-round, rain or shine, from 8am to noon.
Our Mission
The Corner Market is a community-run marketplace that provides customers a venue to interact directly with local growers, makers and bakers. We are committed to supporting the financial sustainability and food security of both our vendors and customers. Our goal is to improve opportunities for all in our community by promoting local economic development, increasing food access and serving as a cornerstone for community connection.
In 2019 we formally partnered with the folks that run The People’s Market to create a non profit to support grassroots community run markets like ours. Our neighborhoods and markets are unique but our values are the same: We believe that a healthy community insures that all its members have access to nutritious food, builds a sustainable local food system, and supports inclusive spaces for neighbors to connect. By sharing resources like COVID relief grant funding and our Green for Greens SNAP doubling fund, we’ve made both markets stronger.
Our board consists of Kathy Newsom, Stephen Johnson, Liz Seymour and Shante Skinner-Woody. If your community is exploring the idea of a neighborhood marketplace, we’d be happy to chat.