On November 6, 2020, Heart of the City Farmers’ Market’s Executive Director Kate Creps, Market Manager Steve Pulliam, and Assistant Manager Abby Winship Hoyos led a presentation hosted by San Francisco Public Library to discuss “The Future of Heart of the City Farmers’ Market.”
This virtual market tour explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and wildfire smoke on the farmers’ market at UN Plaza, its farmers, and the survival of its critical food access programs.
View the YouTube video of the presentation below to learn about our farmer-operated nonprofit’s unique history, mission to distribute over $1.5 million in food assistance each year to a struggling community, and new challenges that will affect this beloved market and its farmers into the future.
For the first time in our 40-year history, we fear for the future of the market due to budget shortfalls as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Revenue from stall fees has fallen over 30% during the pandemic and we have lost over $100,000 in sponsorships. Meanwhile operating costs have risen due to enhance social distancing protocol including additional staff costs, equipment, supplies, and security to serve customers safely and efficiently while health and safety measures are in place.
Our vendors are reporting devastating financial losses. Credit card sales at HOCFM’s information tent fell $170,000 between March and October 2020 and vendors report sales have reduced 50% this summer. As summer is our busy season, we fear for the challenging winter ahead.
We continue to distribute food assistance to low-income households to support this struggling extremely low-income community during the pandemic, securing an additional $200,000 to distribute as food relief vouchers at our info tent and delivering 1,500 boxes of produce to WIC families during summer 2020. We distributed over $500,000 in food relief between March and September 2020 and 95% has been redeemed with our vendors to date. This additional revenue has been critical to supporting our farmers through the most challenging year for small farming in our market’s history. Our new Friday farmers’ market was permanently closed as of March 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic.
You can also skim the transcript of the presentation here or make a donation to our “Save the Market” COVID-19 Fund at hotcfarmersmarket.org/donate. We remain ever grateful to our customers who have sustained this special market for 40 years.