We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Erika McFaden. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Erika below.

Erika, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

At the Bedford Farmers Market here in Bedford, Virginia, we’ve created a space for our community to gather. Not just to shop, but to support local businesses, meet family, learn about seasonal produce, take part in healthy living and educational activities, take advantage of a growing food assistance progarm, and experiece a safe, accepting environment. It wasn’t like that when I volunteered to take the market manager position six years ago. The thirteen vendors that agreed to show up met me with skepticism, doubt and were exhausted from their previous market experience. We had about 100 visitors that day. Maybe.

As the weeks and years went on, the market has become a community touchstone, and we see over 500 people each week. It takes a village of vendors, patrons, and volunteers to foster a weekly event that invites people from all walks of life to enjoy a morning at the market. The compliments we get reflect that environment:
“This is the first place we brought our baby; it’s so safe here!”
“…you can’t beat the small town community efforts put in by these folks!”
“I love this market so much! …the vendors always remember me (and my name!) and the organizer is always welcoming and kind.”
“The Farmer’s Market is an amazing experience”

If, one day, I have to hand over the market reins to someone else, I would hope the legacy I left would be one of kindness, acceptance, and safety. Not only that, but a prosperous farmers market where small farms and artisan businesses can rely on an income. It’s been a work of heart these past six years, and what this market has become is something I’d be proud to hand off to someone else willing to carry on it’s purpose.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am the quintessential “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Through a circuitous route that took me from fine arts to non-profit work, into teaching middle school English where I stayed for a decade until taking a leave of absence to care for my mother, I ended up in a bit of a career limbo when Mom passed away in 2018. I live with my husband on his family’s cattle farm. He was selling his product at the local farmers market and came home one day in 2019 with the news that the current manager had been asked to step down, did I want to run the market? With my usual attitude, of, “Let’s do this” – I jumped into the role.

This is a volunteer position that requires massive amounts of optimism, flexibility, and a heaping spoonful of loving your community. Because that’s why you do something like this in a small town – to give the community a place to support local farms and artisans, connect with friends and family, to educate the public about healthy choices, seasonal produce and how their agricutural communtiy works.

The entire market works together to help our area understand what it means to shop seasonally – how it affects local farmers and workers, and the value it brings to the family dinner table. We are proponants of shopping locally and keeping local dollars in our town as well as bringing in out of town guests that boost our economy.

I love when people find us, whether from out of town or someone within our community who hasn’t discovered the market yet. They are always pleased with our welcoming environment, the selection of vendors, and the acceptance they find here. Every week there are new connections and friendships made at our market – it’s become a community touchstone and my goal is to help Bedford Farmers Market continue to grow and thrive into the future.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Befor each farmers market season, we have a “Pre-Season Meeting”. It’s for everyone – to orient new folks, and for vendors who have been there awhile to get updates and so everyone can meet each other and feel better about the first day of the farmers market. It can get hectic, so it’s nice to see familiar faces in an unfamiliar environment.

That meeting is how I begin creating a family out of our vendors. At this meeting I will often say something like, “You don’t work for me, we work with each other” – even though my title is, “manager” and I can make the executive decisons, I want the vendors to feel like the market is theirs. I go out of my way to make sure they make the decisions and that they feel comfortable telling me their ideas, if they have an issue, or they see something that can be improved.

Listening to the vendors and volunteers, implementing their ideas when they work and tending to their concerns has created a family out of us – and even though there are a few that don’t quite get it, the rest have become a fantastic and happy team and that trickles over to the market patrons.

I also have two fairly unorthodox rules for myself with which I run this market:
1. I never ask anyone to be a vendor.
2. “The trash takes itself out”
In general, this means that we’ve created such a phenomenal environment with our family of vendors that the right people find us. In the same vein, if you’re acting a fool, then you feel uncomfortable in this space and will leave of your own accord. I’ve never had to “fire” a vendor. They just go.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

Positive interaction at the actual farmers market works wonders. It’s the experience patrons have there that keeps them coming back.

Online, I answer EVERYTHING. If a reviewer leaves five stars and no comment, I thank them for those stars. If someone shares a post or event, I like that share – and comment if they make a post with that share. Negative comments are always answered with straighforwardly but with kindness, and I attempt to address anything that crops up.

I have an amazing volunteer who echos all of our market sentiments to everyone she can. And as we have fostered good relationships with our vendors, many of them will do the same. They have created customers for their product which brings folks back to the market. It’s a victorious cycle!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bedford-va-farmers-market.square.site
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bedfordvafarmersmarket/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mybedfordmarket
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bedford-farmers-market-bedford-3

Image Credits

All images are my own.