Category Archives: Festivals

Downtown Valdosta Farm Days Grows 4 June 2011



Lots of people and vendors last Saturday, buying local food in downtown Valdosta!

Every other Saturday around the historic Lowndes County Courthouse
is

Downtown Valdosta Farm Days, 9AM to 1PM, May through September.
It’s organized by
Valdosta Main Street.
Amanda Peacock and shy Mara Register

explain what’s going on
at the beginning of this


playlist showing most of the vendors and the general atmosphere of community festival.




Downtown Valdosta Farm Days Grows 4 June 2011 Part 2 of 2:

, Downtown Valdosta Farm Days,

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 June 2011.

Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Still pictures in the flickr set.

-jsq

Hahira Market Days this Saturday



I asked Hahira’s new special events coordinator, Sherri Burgess,
“when will the Hahira Farmers’ Market be this year?”
She replied:

Market Days will be held on Saturdays from 8 to 12 during the months of June
and July.



Sherri Burgess

Special Event Coordinator

City of Hahira

102 S. Church Street

Hahira, GA 31632

229.794.2567

downtown@hahira.ga.us



So meet us at the caboose on Main Street!
Get there by 8AM if you can; usually sold out by noon.

The pictures of previous Hahira markets are from

26 June 2010,

3 July 2010,
and

10 July 2010.

-jsq

Hahira hires Special Event Coordinator Sherri Burgess

A press release from Hahira (unknown date),

City of Hahira Announces New Special Event Coordinator.
She says she started working for Hahira in February.
Here’s the PR:



February Third Thursday Restructured

Hahira, GA – After a lengthy search, the City of Hahira recently hired a new
Special Event Coordinator. Sherri Burgess will work with the Hahira City
Council and Hahira business owners to enhance economic development
opportunities in Downtown Hahira. She will coordinate special events and
implement new ideas for the citizens of the City of Hahira.

Mrs. Burgess has experience with event planning and retail business
management. A long-time resident of Las Vegas, Nevada, she and her husband,
Paul, are newcomers to the Hahira area. Paul recently retired as Chief
Master Sergeant with the United States Air Force. “We are tremendously
pleased to have Sherri join our team,” stated Hahira Mayor Wayne Bullard.
“Her talents will only enhance the quality service that citizens of Hahira
and the surrounding area have come to know and love in our City.”

Many events are currently in planning for 2011 in Hahira. However, because
of the transition, Third Thursday will not have the traditional activities
that patrons have come to know and love.



For Further Information, Please Contact:

Jonathan Sumner

City Manager

City of Hahira

(229) 794-2330

Protesters at VLCIA 17 May 2011

Those biomass protesters were back, playing hopscotch!


Industrial Authority board meetings have turned into sidewalk cultural events.
This was outside the 17 May 2011 meeting.





A couple of different signs:
Susan Wehling with her traffic signal stop biomass sign,
and a Honk for Clean Air sign.

-jsq

Amanda Peacock explains it all (Downtown Valdosta Farm Days)



Food and other vendors
on the historic Lowndes County Courthouse Square,
in Valdosta, Georgia,
every first and third Saturday, 9AM to 1PM.

Here’s

the video:




Amanda Peacock explains it all (Downtown Valdosta Farm Days)

Downtown Valdosta Farm Days, Courthouse Square,

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 7 May 2011.

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

More about that in this previous post.

-jsq

I sold 40 pounds of potatoes in an hour! —Gretchen Quarterman

People said they’d come back, but I sold out in an hour
and had to tell them you need to come at 9!
Downtown Valdosta Farm Days is a success.

I don’t have any pictures of me or my potatoes, though; sorry.
But here you can see
me digging the same potatoes.



Lots of vendors of food-related items, such as

Continue reading →

Local foods, local economy, local community

Local food is more than healthier, it’s even more than tasty.
It’s also local economy and local community.

In the U.K., small local shops are being replaced by big-box supermarkets.
A widespread argument for this conversion is that consumers get
more choice.
Peter Wilby wrote in the Guardian 3 May 2011 about

why that’s not good enough:



Even the “good for consumers” defence of the big stores requires
scrutiny. Supermarkets may offer mangoes and kiwi fruit as a blessed
relief to generations who recall the surly greengrocer grunting “no
demand for it” when asked for anything out of the ordinary. But the
option to buy locally grown produce is increasingly closed off; many
varieties of English fruit disappeared long ago. Supermarkets stock food
not for its taste, but for its longevity and appearance. Conventional
economists count numbers, assuming that a huge increase in toilet roll
colours represents an unqualified gain to the consumer. They neglect
more subtle dimensions of choice.

The central issue, however, is whether “what the consumer wants” should
close down the argument. What people want as consumers may not be what
they want as householders, community members, producers, employees or
entrepreneurs. The loss of small shops drains a locality’s economic and
social capital. Money spent in independent retail outlets tends to stay
in the community, providing work for local lawyers and accountants,
plumbers and decorators, window cleaners and builders.

He then cites

U.S. research that shows local stores promote the local economy.
Are we just consumers?
Maybe we do other things than just buy stuff?
Especially, do we do other things together?

Continue reading →

May 7: Downtown Valdosta Farm Days




Downtown Valdosta Farm Days begin two weeks from tomorrow:

Bringing the best of the country to the heart of the City!

Downtown Valdosta Farm Days is a bi-weekly farmers’ market featuring
local farmers and artisans and also serves to educate the community
about eating local, nutrition and food choices.

Downtown Farmers Market

First and Third Saturdays from May to September

9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m.

Lowndes County Courthouse Square, Downtown Valdosta

There’s a calendar on their

website,
along with how to become a vendor.

And everybody is purring now.
Agriculture, economy, and a festival!
And, it costs the county nothing.

More on this story as it develops.

-jsq

You, here, now —Bill McKibben @ Power Shift



A great honor and a terrible burden.

I think he meant not only the people in front of him but also
everyone willing to do something.

As for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:

We cannot stop money but we can strip them of their credibility.

That applies to some other organizations, as well.

We need to fight with art and music, too.

10,000 young people went to DC to hear him in

Power Shift 2011.
We are all late to the fight.
As he says:

Try to change those odds.

Here’s

the video.

-jsq

PS: Owed to Raven.

Valdosta Downtown Farm Days —Mara Register



Mara Register came to the Lowndes County Commission regular meeting
to talk about Downtown Valdosta Farm Days,
following up from the

Farm Days organizational meeting Monday.

I think her main points were:

  1. Provide additional information about healthy eating
    with food from local farmers,
    thus helping solve the epidemic of childhood obesity in Georgia.
  2. Economic development opportunity for small farmers.
  3. Promote downtown district.

When?
The Saturday after First Friday and the Saturday after Art After Dark.

Where?
The parking spaces around the historic courthouse.

No livestock.
Local produce.
Here’s

video of the first part of what she said.




Regular Meeting, Lowndes County Commission, Lowndes County, Georgia, 12 April 2011

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Logistics, such as no cooking, because

Continue reading →